Eo vs 4X

[Svalinn]

I'm simply curious how this holds up against say Age of Wonders, Endless Legend and Gladius (Amongst other pretty darn good 4X games.) I'm a huge spellforce guy, having put a good.. 500 on disks and likely another 700-1k hours across all three spellforce games. So the lore is there for me.

So, how is it as a 4X game, especially compared to the ones I listed? I'm simply curious, as I'm always looking for another chill "one more turn" 100+ hour sink. I'd also welcome any dope Dwarf stuff if possible to let me know, as Dwarf is my main appeal in any game if possible.

[orian34]

It's hard to really compare it to other genres. I'd say the 4x is lighter, with a focus on wizard tower gameplay. I personally really enjoy it, and you've got Dwarf action in the game, a fairly significant part if you wish to.

But I'd say, what should seal the deal is this event in the game from a dwarven ruin:
What do you call a female elf?

[Yoinkyz]

its better then age of wonders 4 for sure

[Kaysoky]

There's a relatively straightforward comparison between CoE and AoW. CoE borrows the combat system heavily from AoW 3+, so if you've played those games, you'll immediately see the similarities. CoE goes deeper into the unit progression system though, so it's more like playing with an RPG party stack (CoE) compared to 1 hero and 5+ semi-disposable minions (AoW). (Also, as a consequence, there are no multi-stack combats in CoE.) And the class crafting systems double down on the RPG-esque focus.

In terms of 4X mechanics, CoE has a heavy emphasis on exploration. Compared to a traditional 4X game, there aren't "cities" you can build to expand your territory. At most, you can exert a bit of your influence in select areas, but you are meant to keep moving. This keeps the scope of unit management to a smaller scale and the economy takes a bit to get used to, when you come from traditional 4X games.

[Svalinn]

Interesting, so it is less city management, and more unit focus. Might be fun as a side thing then, as I do like making sprawling empires. However, sometimes the same bland units dying in droves and it meaning little can get old, until super high tier that is.

I'll have to keep my eye out for it, maybe scoop it up on a sale down the line. Not that the price point is all that bad really, 30 is on the cheaper end for these kinda games.

[oldcrankyman]

Originally posted by Svalinn:

I'm simply curious how this holds up against say Age of Wonders, Endless Legend and Gladius (Amongst other pretty darn good 4X games.) I'm a huge spellforce guy, having put a good.. 500 on disks and likely another 700-1k hours across all three spellforce games. So the lore is there for me.

So, how is it as a 4X game, especially compared to the ones I listed? I'm simply curious, as I'm always looking for another chill "one more turn" 100+ hour sink. I'd also welcome any dope Dwarf stuff if possible to let me know, as Dwarf is my main appeal in any game if possible.

It hands down beats AoW 4 all to death. Runs MUCH better. It's pretty unique, I can guarantee that you'll spend more than 100 hrs.

[Sir Clavius]

AoW4 is not great and not terrible game. Its just okey game. I played few times and always get bored very quickly. Graphics are boring, hard to see the things on the maps, music and sound effects are meh. Has no soul.

Conquest of Eo is just much better game and more unique than AoW4.

[Svalinn]

Wasn't really asking for a slam piece on another game, lol. Shame you didn't like it, but not every game works for everybody. Eo sounds less builder focused, which I enjoy.. so I likely won't get nearly as much game play out of it as I will other 4X/Grand Strat games. Still sounds like it'll be fun when I eventually get it.

[OneoftheLost]

Conquest of Eo isn't really like anything else. Sure you can compare it to Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and magic...but the core gameplay loop, and flow is very, very different.

Conquest of Eo is tied around progression. You are a nothing wizard who just discovered his tower. You dont get to choose your race, you quickly realize that all the resources you get start to run out.

You choose your crafting class, or create a custom wizard and choose your spell books. Unlike Age of Wonders... that determines your playstyle. Lets say you choose the Alchemist. Your crafting is focused on making potions with spell like abilities that can buff/summon/debuff. If you choose Artificier, its all about crafting glyphs and empowering your troops. If you choose necromancer, your strategy revolves around getting souls from units you fight, and creating masses of expendable units. I'll throw cheap stacks of undead at things, and wear them down without blinking an eye.

See that mana node? Yeah that only lasts ten turns. Then it runs out. See that goblin encampment? Yeah you can recruit from it, but what about when resources run out in the area?

Also those beginning units? Those are expendable. All the cities around the map? You can't conquer them.

Conquest of Eo is a power curve, not a 4x game. Not really. As you gobble up resources, you have to pick up your tower and move. Eventually you unlock not just spells but abilities. Your tower gets stronger, and you start to recruit better units from you favorite cities, or craft/summon them.

Then you meet your 'opponents'. The thing is, each circle member has his or her own personality and crafting style.... and they aren't playing the same game you are. Because you are a nobody who's rising up, and they are sitting fully set up.

The crafting is also its own kind of exploration. Mix that wheat with a bomb, and you discover a new item that your troops can use. Mix 3 magic and get a skeleton magi... but you don't know the recipes, you have to take the new item or soul you just found and experiment until you find a new recipe.

Conquest of Eo has random maps, but the story is still of a wizard rising up against a circle of magi. It has all the trappings of a 4x, and the combat is pulled straight from age of wonders.... but its entirely different in feel. I don't feel its very comparable to those games. Sure you will move your stacks around, but its about gobbling up resources while moving your tower around a map long enough to get your stacks of troops leveled up enough to stand against the circle.

Conquest of Eo is a very unique game, and its very good. Its just not really something you can play like you would age of wonders or Endless legend. Rapid expansion isn't really possible. Early game rushes aren't possible. Turtling in the corner of the map and building tall isn't possible.

Just something to think about. This is much more of an adventure than those games.

[aeroth]

Spellforce conquest of eo is a real gem and it's a very unique brand of game.

I have played the entire aow series, the endless series and i'm an old master of magic player. When i tell you this game is good you better believe it.

[CuddilyWuddily]

AoW4 is

• Sandbox. You make your own story.
  
• RNG plays a tiny role. Everything is reproducible.
  
• Planning, building, strategizing focus. You have hero builds, Tome selection order, etc.
  
• Built in encyclopedia for you to plan everything around
  
• Immense replay value.
  
• long term repeated enjoyment.
  
• Both Hero and army are strong. Heroes can get so strong that they don't need an army. Army can get so strong that they don't need heroes. Hence you can decide whatever way you want to go. You can see why this game has such replay value.
  
• Game is challenging even for experienced players.

CoE is

• RNG is the game. Every aspect of the game revolves around RNG.
  
  • You want multiple high level spell? Too bad. It is highly unlikely you can get the 2 high level spells you want in every game. Most of the time you'll only get 1. And if you want 3 high level spells... yeah... not gonna happen.
    
  • You want to build your hero in a specific way? Too bad. All level up options are random and you get only 3 out of 20+ options every level so there is absolutely no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ way you can get the skill you want and if you do, you won't be getting it next game.
• No in-game encyclopedia
  
• No way to strategize or plan. There is no way for you to know what level up options each unit gets access to because there is no encyclopedia. Not that it matters because there is only like a 5% chance that you'll get the ability you want on level up and save scumming doesn't work in this game.
  
• Game is early game only. There is no lategame in this game because once you get moderately strong, everything even on impossible difficulty is too weak. Early game is the only challenging part. The extra scenarios are all early game only. Once early game ends you might as well quit because you've already won.
  
• To add to the above, the game is designed so that a lot of combos just outright break the game and the dev's solution to that is the same as Binding of Isaac's which is use RNG to make it impossible to do combos.
  
• NOT Sandbox. You don't get to write your own story. All of your enemies let you win to test your strength. You can't burn down cities. Endless Legend and Endless Space 2 suffer from the same problem.
  
• Heroes are weak. Even though this game's lategame is super easy your heroes will die in one turn to a single unit because they're that squishy and don't deal enough damage. And you can only reliably make them be beatsticks because again, all of their fun level up options are RNGesus dependent.
  
• Game is designed to be played blind once and you're done because once you figure out everything there is 0 challenge left and again there are no tools for you to build with.
  
• No real replay value. I have 0 motivation to play the same class more than once.
  
• Crafting focus. I'd say 100% of the game is you just flying around gathering materials to craft stuff.
  
• Missing a LOT of basic features. There is no quest list. If you accept a lot of quests and forgot their names or objectives, you're ****ed.

Someone said AoW4 is souless? It was before the hero rework. Heroes were uninteresting and bland before the rework and it was one of the reasons why I quit the game. Post rework this is the most fun I had in a while. The rework added so many dimensions to heroes and if you multiply that by the many dimensions of armies you get so many things you want to try that it kills all of your free time.

Anyways, Am I saying this CoE is bad? No. It's a great game. I love it so much I made a guide for it.
First time exploring, experimenting, and beating the game once was fun.

But then the game became frustrating and unsatisfactory because it was just 100% RNG, and too easy, and no encyclopedia. I mean, I can't do weird and fun things in this game because trying to figure out what's in this game is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ painful and excruciating and the RNG prevents me from getting the things I need to do the weird and fun thing so I go back to AoW4

That's my thoughts anyways.

edit: One more advantage of CoE is Spellforce is rich in lore especially after you play Spellforce 3 and all of its expansions. That greatly increased the enjoyment of the game for me.

[Yoinkyz]

its just age of wonders 3 was god tier imo. i still member how disappointed i was personally at launch of aow 4, yes its decent now with alot of money and updates.

[Svalinn]

Yeah, I didn't touch AoW4 until.. uh.. the last DLC, War whatever. AoW3 was pretty god like, but I didn't touch that until pretty far in as well. Lot of games sadly release in so-so stats and people tend to forget that and color it that way, and compare it to products with all the DLC.

Not an excuse for a bad launch of course, such as Civ 7, but comparing it to the finished 6 DLC included is a bit shaky.. although I prefer the olden days with no DLC, lol.. but that is for dinosaurs at this point.

[Svalinn]

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

AoW4 is

• Sandbox. You make your own story.
  
• RNG plays a tiny role. Everything is reproducible.
  
• Planning, building, strategizing focus. You have hero builds, Tome selection order, etc.
  
• Built in encyclopedia for you to plan everything around
  
• Immense replay value.
  
• long term repeated enjoyment.
  
• Both Hero and army are strong. Heroes can get so strong that they don't need an army. Army can get so strong that they don't need heroes. Hence you can decide whatever way you want to go. You can see why this game has such replay value.
  
• Game is challenging even for experienced players.

CoE is

• RNG is the game. Every aspect of the game revolves around RNG.
  
  • You want multiple high level spell? Too bad. It is highly unlikely you can get the 2 high level spells you want in every game. Most of the time you'll only get 1. And if you want 3 high level spells... yeah... not gonna happen.
    
  • You want to build your hero in a specific way? Too bad. All level up options are random and you get only 3 out of 20+ options every level so there is absolutely no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ way you can get the skill you want and if you do, you won't be getting it next game.
• No in-game encyclopedia
  
• No way to strategize or plan. There is no way for you to know what level up options each unit gets access to because there is no encyclopedia. Not that it matters because there is only like a 5% chance that you'll get the ability you want on level up and save scumming doesn't work in this game.
  
• Game is early game only. There is no lategame in this game because once you get moderately strong, everything even on impossible difficulty is too weak. Early game is the only challenging part. The extra scenarios are all early game only. Once early game ends you might as well quit because you've already won.
  
• To add to the above, the game is designed so that a lot of combos just outright break the game and the dev's solution to that is the same as Binding of Isaac's which is use RNG to make it impossible to do combos.
  
• NOT Sandbox. You don't get to write your own story. All of your enemies let you win to test your strength. You can't burn down cities. Endless Legend and Endless Space 2 suffer from the same problem.
  
• Heroes are weak. Even though this game's lategame is super easy your heroes will die in one turn to a single unit because they're that squishy and don't deal enough damage. And you can only reliably make them be beatsticks because again, all of their fun level up options are RNGesus dependent.
  
• Game is designed to be played blind once and you're done because once you figure out everything there is 0 challenge left and again there are no tools for you to build with.
  
• No real replay value. I have 0 motivation to play the same class more than once.
  
• Crafting focus. I'd say 100% of the game is you just flying around gathering materials to craft stuff.
  
• Missing a LOT of basic features. There is no quest list. If you accept a lot of quests and forgot their names or objectives, you're ****ed.

Someone said AoW4 is souless? It was before the hero rework. Heroes were uninteresting and bland before the rework and it was one of the reasons why I quit the game. Post rework this is the most fun I had in a while. The rework added so many dimensions to heroes and if you multiply that by the many dimensions of armies you get so many things you want to try that it kills all of your free time.

Anyways, Am I saying this CoE is bad? No. It's a great game. I love it so much I made a guide for it.
First time exploring, experimenting, and beating the game once was fun.

But then the game became frustrating and unsatisfactory because it was just 100% RNG, and too easy, and no encyclopedia. I mean, I can't do weird and fun things in this game because trying to figure out what's in this game is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ painful and excruciating and the RNG prevents me from getting the things I need to do the weird and fun thing so I go back to AoW4

That's my thoughts anyways.

edit: One more advantage of CoE is Spellforce is rich in lore especially after you play Spellforce 3 and all of its expansions. That greatly increased the enjoyment of the game for me.

Nice to see a fairly comprehensive reply. So, it is really RNG heavy? Hmm, that is a bit of a concern as I don't mind some random elements of things here and there, after all I've played a lot of CRPG's in my time; however, I do like a vast measure of control over things, which is why I like the empire building aspect of things. I will say the AoW4 does have an issue with hero spam, I do find that really old after awhile. NPC and Players running around with 3-4 heroes in a stack gets old; kind of wish one hero per army was the innate rule to the game.

That being said, this isn't an AoW4 thread. Admittedly, I wager it will really help if you are a huge Spellforce nerd with CoE. But, the RNG factor does bring it down a notch or two; that being said at 30 bucks it'll still likely be a great time as someone whom has put far too many hours into Spellforce 1-3. I appreciate the reply.

PPS. Wish I could really get into Endless Legends, but aside from a few niche interesting things it has, it doesn't thrill me as much as other 4x and Grand Strats. Unit customization and absorbing factions is neat, lot about it I didn't like though.

[CuddilyWuddily]

Originally posted by Svalinn:

So, it is really RNG heavy? Hmm, that is a bit of a concern as I don't mind some random elements of things here and there, after all I've played a lot of CRPG's in my time; however, I do like a vast measure of control over things, which is why I like the empire building aspect of things.

There are mods made by the devs themselves that make level up options NOT rng dependent but not spell pages. Spell pages are 100% random.

Now you can get the spell pages you want through excessive save scumming I believe. I thought it wasn't save scummable but another player said it is as long as you save scum on different turns, but then, once again, that hits the problem of "what's the point". You can beat the game with only your starting spell pages so what is the point of putting in so much effort to get these spell pages when you already roflstomp without them?

Originally posted by Svalinn:

I will say the AoW4 does have an issue with hero spam, I do find that really old after awhile. NPC and Players running around with 3-4 heroes in a stack gets old; kind of wish one hero per army was the innate rule to the game.

I disagree. AI controlled heroes are no better than regular units so it doesn't matter how many heroes they have just like it doesn't matter how many stock generic melee units they have.

I also disagree with the 1 hero per army rule. Pure hero stacks are so much fun right now with the rework and the new Cult of Personality society trait. Turns the game into a procedurally generated RPG.

Originally posted by Svalinn:

PPS. Wish I could really get into Endless Legends, but aside from a few niche interesting things it has, it doesn't thrill me as much as other 4x and Grand Strats. Unit customization and absorbing factions is neat, lot about it I didn't like though.

I play Endless Legends solely for 2 reasons.
1. Robot v.s. non-robots in a fantasy setting. I love this so much.
2. Super units. Some of the Titans in Endless Legend are stupidly strong so rushing them and having them kick ass is just... yeah... amazing.

So I guess if you don't like super units or something specific about the playable factions then... yeah. Once you figure out the optimal build order (production first) then the game is dead because there's no other way to play it. There's also only different 3 unit types per faction so...

I probably won't buy Endless Legend 2 unless they have a robot (not cyborg) faction.

If you played Endless Space 2, the problem is the story. The faction and their story is so intertwined that you can't go "my guys" in the game even with custom factions. This is present in pretty much every endless title.

[Svalinn]

Yeah, save scumming is a bit odd for that kind of result. Feel like best way to learn in these games is to taste that failure a few times, or just adjust according to how you are fed. Glad to know there is a way to mitigate some of the RNG overload though.

I 'unno, glad some people enjoy it. I just find it a bit less thrilling with hero spam, but that's just me. Ai gets super annoying with it though.

I tend to avoid more sci-fi focus stuff as a general given, not always; of course.. the settings of the game are a huge enjoyment factor for me, for instance.. I didn't really care about Total War until Warhammer came along. Endless legend is certainly an interesting mixture.