How hard is this to get in to?

[cjhangen]

I know nothing about Conquest of Elysium 5 beyond reading a few reviews. I generally love Rogue-likes, Ultima 3--6, Heroes of MM 3, Battle for Wesnoth, so I'm fine with truly old school graphics. Not a huge fan of the Civ games, though.

I was able to figure out Total War Warhammer 2 pretty well, which I thought could require a semester in community college personally. Worth it, though.

How long did it take you to learn the game? Anything in this game that really clicks for you? I'm interested in hearing more about it.

[chickendoodle48]

I just picked up the game, having never played any other of games in the series. I lost within 30 minutes because I lets all my commanders die. The game is deceptively easy to play, with you really only in control of army movement, and recruitment. The game seems simpler than total war, you do not manually control you armies in battle, and completely different than civ, I do not think you can build up you economy buildings at all.

The game shines in its depth of lore, and the faction variety. Every faction plays completely different. I was playing as the Witch, and needed to focus on conquering Woods/Swamps in order to collect fungus to summon monsters to fight for me. However, one of my summons went wrong, and my entire army was eliminated. Another faction would have a completely different experience.

I am not even close to learning the game. There is an 80 page manual I need to read, and it seems like a game where knowledge of the enemy really helps in making reasonable strategic decisions. However, I really like what I have played so far, and recommend if any of that seems interesting to you.

[Diergato]

If you played all of those games you'll be fine its kinda like HMM3 with automated combat and little to no city building/development, you can watch videos of Conquest of Elysium 4 and almost all will apply in this game also there a big manual that explains most aspects of the game.

The main attraction in these game and the Dominion series is the big variety of races and how different they are from one another everything from units, spells, resources, goals, events and strategy in general.

[niddhoger]

The real draw of the game is the asymmetrical factions. This isn't like Civ where all civs can more or less play identically save for a "unique" unit/building that just has some minor bonuses. Even so, a science victory with one civ almost always looks exactly the same as a science victory with another. You are almost always doing the same things, you just get your bonuses in a slightly different way.

And in CoE, while some factions will play pretty similar with each other... there really is a great deal of variance between them. Try playing through a few and you'll likely find at least one you really jive with their lore and general playstyle.

As for actually getting into the game... keep in mind the random armies will attack you just the same as players. You have to think in terms of "can I maintain this area, or are there too many spawners/mobs running around?" Then think in terms of risk/reward. Generally you want to minimize losses... but sometimes losing damn near everything is worth it if you get enough back in return, like a large amount of special resources for powerful rituals.

The Necro in particular is great about this.... see that city with tough defenses? It has plenty of gold and your special faction resource (hands of glory), but more importantly, even if you wipe most of your army... you can just raise dead a few time sand build up a huge new army on top of the extra resources you get a turn.

So while you can't control units in combat, sadly, the focus is instead shifted to the risk/reward decisions you ahve to make play by play. There is a lot of randomness in the game, so you ahve to learn to control the chaos.

But if the degree of indirect control is a deal breaker... that is understanble. I've sunk several hundred hours into the CoE series with more in DOminions... but it's not for everyone. Hope you can find the magic in this underrated gem, too!

[Foogsie]

It took a few hours and a fair bit of failures for me to get into CoE3 back in the day. I'd say the main thing that 'clicked' was just being patient early game and realizing just because I can win a fight doesn't mean I should take it. And also just not worrying if stuff got back capped and to go regrab it when convenient and not worry too much.

The game is "simple" in that you actually have very few methods of direct input - you attach units to commanders, then move commanders. Recruit once per turn per holding if you have money and want to spend money, many commanders have some rituals they can do and that's most of it. Most of the game play is just in raw decision making - can my army take out that army without being crippled? You can't change formations or reposition or any such, so it's just the strategic layer of do I attack or do I find something else to do? Do I doomstack to try and get a decisive win or split up to cap a bunch of ground?

The actual battles do have a lot of mechanics even if you can't control it, so there's still a ton to learn to figure out when you'll win decisively, win painfully, or sob as you didn't quite understand how dread or awe worked and you watch a hundred units get grinded to dust by a couple of special units.

[cjhangen]

Thanks for the replies so far! My interest is piqued. I may have to pick this up this week.

[Rapier]

Originally posted by cjhangen:

Thanks for the replies so far! My interest is piqued. I may have to pick this up this week.

If you have a friend or know someone, you can play through remote play and get a feel for the game. MP might even be a smoother learning experience since it allows you to make more mistakes and experiment.

I played with a friend and learnee about this game a week ago and I can stand my ground on it in Butler difficulties. Still pretty newbie, but it is one of those games that are super simple to learn but hard to master.