150 hours in, no multiplayer, fan of HoMM3, 5 and 6

Initial thoughts...

This is by far my favourite game from this subgenre, the parallax graphics are really beautiful and the developers have spared no expense on the style they chose. The combat has lots of modern adaptations that make every unit feel very unique, there's a lot of depth to learning macro strategies, and the heaps of past issues from similar titles have been solved in creative ways. If you have an interest in challenging yourself to learn what works well in the game, you'll probably enjoy yourself a lot.

The main major problem you could have compared to HoMM3 specifically would be the lack of content, but that is more due to the fact HoMM3 is absolutely packed, otherwise SoC is better in almost every regard. There are of course subjective problems you could have: the magic system is very different, one of the limitations is the inability to have massive doomstacks since SoC unit stacks all have caps.

After playing 100+ hours, what I personally think needs to change and what I like...

The day before writing this review, development has come out with an update on what they're currently working on and what will come. Something you will begin to feel early on, around the 10-30 hour mark, is that while all physical bonuses (+30% ranged resistance, 30% melee resistance, 20% damage) all seem decently balanced, playing a Magic focused Wielder is always the best option. So the developers are planning to add more sources of Magic Resistance. As a Barya player, I can confidently say, adjusting Magic Resistance does little to nothing. Magic damage is overpowered early game because you can spread high essence units over command slots, generate essence and take "Suicide" threat PvE encounters with no casualties. Late game (encountering other Wielders), magic is overpowered because of all the utility it gives you, and Barya is overpowered in this stage almost purely because of the spell Onslaught.

With T3 Order and T3 Chaos, you will start every combat with half of what you need, if you use Bihgli you'll get an additional chaos meaning you only need 2 sources of Chaos essence, and 1 source of Order since Muskets already have 2. If you are in a position where your Muskets can actually survive turn 1, and they are upgraded, they can aim and get Onslaught twice. If you have T3 Essence Burst, you will also have a dimensional door, T3 Onslaught and most likely initiative control. The problem with T3 Onslaught is the fact that you can apply it to a singular ranged unit, meaning a high powered reloader gets 4 attacks in one turn, 7 attacks in one turn with Essence Burst added, and 10+ attacks in 2 turns along with whatever other buffs you can get from your endless pool of Essence. Magic Resistance, Ranged related Skills - all of these are completely irrelevant to a strong ranged unit firing off so many shots. The most effective response to this is sadly, most likely Magic power which enables you to reduce the opponent's ranged offence significantly, but it still won't be enough.

Stacking spells really need to be changed, at the very least Onslaught should be changed or transferred to melee only, forcing Barya players to choose between Order/Destruction Rapid Fire for ranged power, or Order/Chaos for melee power. In general though, I have no significant problem with Magic being overpowered. Essence plays a prime role in the gameplay itself, and I think almost every Wielder still has a decent chance to find a Magic skill (at least in Barya).

A few things I picked up after testing PvP rounds out, around 80 hours into playing, Initiative is probably the most overlooked stat you have. Having lower initiative then another unit feels like an immense disadvantage, it hugely effects whether or not your stack will survive/get to attack first, and dictates who can play around Essence/Essence economy. Take the "Prepared" skill every time. Almost always pick artifacts that improve Initiative. There are instances where you're very outmatched, and if all your units go first, you will destroy so many stacks that the opponent you should have lost against instead barely gets to play. If the devs really want to balance Magic then they should make Prepared much harder for Magic Wielders to find, it would really double down on Magic users being strong early for PvE and non-magic combat Wielders scaling better later into the game.

Finally, I have to take a lot of credit away from all the hours I've put in, since I have not once touched the multiplayer community. SoC feels so deep that every theory that I come up with could be wrong because of subjective experience, and being unable to see what other players are doing, the duration of their games, etc, means that I could be flat out wrong. Maybe Magic Damage itself is the problem? Maybe Onslaught isn't overpowered? Maybe Prepared is a weak skill compared to some others? It all feels very good to play, but with how the meta game relates to Round timings and how realistically a large team composition can be built, I can confirm there are dozens of possibilities on what might seem unbalanced while actually fitting into the game. Simultaneous turns are coming - I'm someone who'd much prefer a chess timer, hopefully there will be incentive to rush out some quick multiplayer games eventually.

And a few tips for finding strong team compositions:
- Play as both players on the PvP Map, or make your own to change levels
- Try finding comps that beat Loth's Rat Wielder with mostly Rats and Aurelian Scholars in the back if you had to level up Arcana and/or if you had to level up Command over 4. Make sure to use Dimensional Doors as the Rat, if you have them.
- Try finding comps that beat a full magic power Arleon hero with max slots and Faey Ragers in every slot.

Closing note...

This has been my favourite game release this year, even in it's current state. Regardless of what direction the developers take, I'm very enthusiastic to see what they'll come up with, how they choose to balance it and how it expands.

I'm an old with a bajillion hours in HOMM3.

Ever since 1999 I've played every 'spiritual successor' to HOMM3 and some games have been close, but just not close enough.

But this game, this is it. What an incredible job ya'll did. This game is so damn fun. It has its own unique identity, it's own interesting story. I just dont even know what to say its such a genuinely fun game. The art I just love it.

Anyway buy this game. And to the devs thank you.

In short? Yes, yes it is, and as someone who spent years playing hotseat games with friends and family as well as daylong matches on MSN gamezone (Yeah, member that?) I couldn't be happier with how closely this game replicates that feeling.

There's some differences of course:

- Town management is handled and reflected on the map and not on a separate screen
- There's unit troop limits for both how many troop stacks you can have as well as the numbers of units in said stacks (These can be upgraded via wielder level up skills and research upgrades respectively)
- Capturing cities converts all the buildings and units to YOUR faction

And that's just to start!


There's 4 factions:
- The Arleon, your standard human soldiers, knights, archers...but what a twist! You get giant Satyrs and Faye creatures!

- The Barya Mercenaries, The desert themed nomad variety, traps, spears, hyenas!

- The Barony Of Loth (My personal favorite), The undead, poisonous rats, plague doctors with hand crossbows, giant flaming spirit armors!

- The Rana, Swamp creatures, Frogs, poison slinging spellcaster shaman....and DRAGONS!

They each have their own cosmetic flavor to their cities, BGM, victory fanfares, etc, it's all very detailed!


Well if you're familiar with HoMM then you're already going to feel right at home, it's the same map traversal, lots of collectible resources for your city, gear for your wielder, troops, encounters with neutral enemies and camps.

And the maps themselves are very detailed, lots of foliage and particle effects and it can be overwhelming to see everything at times (Protip: Hold alt to have important things highlighted for you!)

The combat takes place on a hex grid, units have their own movement range, attack ranges, etc. It's all turn based and effected by various stats like initiative, and terrain height is also very important!

All wielders (The commanders you control) can use magic each turn during combat, but the difference between this game and HoMM is your units have their own elemental values that get added to a pool each round which gives you access to various spells for damage, buffs, debuffs, traps, and obstacles.


Well, it's currently in early access. There's two campaigns which are currently rather short, 4 stages each, I personally hope they're expanded and possibly add campaigns for the other two factions.

There's also a skirmish mode that lets you choose a map and up to 5 AI (6 players total) depending on the map size.

Also included is multiplayer, a map editor, custom campaigns from the community too!

From what I've read the devs are planning a Random Map Generator for skirmish which is a much requested feature from people like me, we'll have to wait and see!


Well, there's just a lot of minor things I'd want:
- Better UI for garrisoning my troops at a base or adding them to my army, it's kinda clunky.

- A method for teleporting between bases, air travel, or underground travel like HoMM had, which could add more content on every map and add shortcuts to get back to base quicker.

That's just to start, a lot of my other needs would be fulfilled by simply having the random map generator so that every match feels fresh and I don't already know where everything is.


Personally I haven't experienced anything that I would normally expect from early access games, the load times are fast even on a HDD, the framerate remains stable at max settings (144 fps/1440p) with only minor stutters moving the camera when the map is fully uncovered.

Only a couple of weird bugs, like not being able to switch factions on other skirmish maps besides the basic one it starts you on, but I've found a way around that. And I've had a large building that I made just suddenly vanish and isn't able to be interacted with, but it's definitely still there and you can recruit from your base as normal, after a few turns it comes back and is visible.


Definitely! I know turn based games are a dying breed, as are the people who get into them but I think if you give it a chance you might enjoy it! And if you're already a fan of games like HoMM, king's bounty, disciples, etc then you REALLY should give this game a try.

The artwork, the animations on the unit sprites, the atmosphere, it's all very rich and vibrant.

My time with it at the time of writing this isn't that long, I'll admit, but I've gone through 1 of the two campaigns and won a couple skirmishes at medium difficulty with 3 of the 4 factions, since the maps don't change I feel like I can evaluate it reasonably enough.

If anything comes up, I'll definitely update this review. And there's still the necessity of re-evaluating it once it's fully launched!

The devs seem to be very active with the community and are open to feedback, even offering to sit in on people's twitch streams and discuss the game with them, and their community discord is VERY populated, that all looks promising for the future of a game that can only get better with a strong community and devs who support it.


Yeah sorry, I'm not used to this sort of thing. But I wanted to express my thoughts and since I don't stream on twitch anymore (Just discord with my friends) I felt it was worth trying to give any sort of feedback I can, whether that helps you the reader or the devs I can only hope.

I love this game so far, and I hope the community grows so we can love it as much as people loved HoMM!

A african Warlord told me it's good, so here i am.


Some of the best Pixelart i have seen in years.

Songs of Conquest is a Heroes of Might and Magic inspired strategy game, but with several unique twists on the old formula (which for the most part improve the game in my opinion).

SoC has a gorgeous strategy layer where you manage and collect resources and build up your towns for unit recruitment. First and foremost SoC is a military conquest game at heart, and economy is only a means to acquire better and bigger armies, so this is not a Civilization game. If your heroes enter combat on the strategy layer (both against neutral mobs and other players) the conflict will be resolved in short tactical battles on a hex grid (usually 3-5 turns so the battles don't overstay their welcome). For those with little patience for easy battles - they can just be auto-resolved and a real ai-vs-ai battle is fought by the game "in the background" to deliver you the end results. You can also somewhat adapt the starting positions of your troops before entering/auto-resolving the battle.

Many players will be familiar with Heroes of Might and Magic so I'll just list some main points how this game differs:

- There is no separate "city screen" and instead you build recruitment and economy/research buildings directly on the strategy map around your cities. There are limited slots so no single city can do everything. There are also different sizes from villages to towns to cities. More "neutral" economy and recruitment buildings are spread all around the map but they can't be improved, you just "flag" them by visiting them with your army and then they provide their benefit to you.

- The number of max. troops in a single unit is limited (can be increased via research, imo better than in HoMM).

- The number of units a hero (aka. "wielder") can command is limited but can be increased on level-ups.

- The number of wielders is limited but can be increased via the number and level of your owned cities.

- Mana (aka. "essence" which is mana with "flavor") for battlefield spells is generated each time a unit gets their turn in the turn order, so your army composition and faction mainly determines your available spells. (Along with items and level-up skills so you can mix and match).

- The spells are pretty varied and with some well-planned utility spells you can really swing the odds in your favor. The spells really open up your tactical options, as it should be.

- Each faction has 8 "basic" troops which can be upgraded to a significantly stronger (visually distinct) version for a total of ~16 troops per faction (currently 4 factions, more are planned if the game does well) and then there's some neutral mobs like wolves as well. The upgraded version of a troop also typically has some form of additional battlefield ability that can be activated. The troop variety is decent, most have a useful battlefield role to fill but some balancing will surely be done as the game goes through early access.

- The tactical battles feature terrain height with higher terrain usually giving damage buffs to range and melee attacks. There's also obstacles, but they only impede movement, they do not affect ranged attacks.

- SoC currently features 4 campaigns with 4 missions each and 4 factions (more on the way via dlc it is speculated). Doesn't sound super much but the maps get big quickly.

- On popular demand simultaneous turns are in the game now! Coolest feature right now: You can control the neutral mobs which the other player is fighting!

- The devs are amazing and responsive and based on my interaction with them during my time as an alpha tester on their discord I have no doubt they will manage to keep improving the game as we go forward with 1.0+.

This game was recommended to me by an African Warlord on Youtube. It does not disappoint.

Ok so I'm 64, been playing games since PC's were made of wood. I've had steam and games on steam for a long time now and this is the first review I've felt the need to do. Why because I had just about given up hope for today's games. I played the original ( yes that would be 1) Heroes game and Kings bounty. But there's something about Songs of Conquest that just hits the spot. No point in trying to explain it just buy it and have a go. If you are old school like me from before the days they said 'old school' then you will feel right at home. Its fun nuff said.

Hey hey people

More info below....

Songs of Conquest (SoC) is a strategy game of adventure, inspired by the 90s classic HoMM. A turn-based game of strategic exploration, kingdom management and tactical combat. It also fuses hero development with lite RPG elements and resource generation with looting. Two linear SP campaigns accompany a skirmish mode for both SP and MP, and a level editor for the creation of additional maps.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812161502
Key takeaways from my time with the game:


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812160802
Analysis from my time with the game:


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2812096894
SoC delivers a promising derivation on HoMM's familiar gameplay loop with its own inviting setting, high quality graphics and bard-like songs. Combat plays more tactically producing a lot of pyrrhic victories and it needs more content and QoL must be addressed along with mission balance.

This evolution of a much loved classic is already WORTHWHILE to play, but when it fulfils its undoubted promise its sure to rank much, much higher.

Thank you for reading. | Follow my curator here. | Key provided by Turn-Based Tactics

I know you, reader. Potential buyer. You're me. You look for negativity first in a game to see if there's any deal breakers. So, here's the bottom line up front.

Yes, Early Access, yes, it's not actually deal breakers (I'm not sorry for the bait), but the game does still have a few issues. Keep in mind, I'm writing this on day one of EA release.

- The AI is quirky and cheesable. The bots brains still need a bit of tuning. After a few hours of play you'll start to notice some inefficiencies, then you'll figure out that they are overly biased over certain targets, then you'll underestimate the AI and get curbstomped without warning because it's still pretty competent.
- The UX is sometimes a bit finnicky. Building hitboxes sometimes making it almost impossible to click on the road behind them, artsy art making me use the Highlight Interactables key every turn, unit abilities being on top of the unit's field sprite making me essentially play the boring version of whack-a-mole... And yet, I had to squeeze my memory really hard to come up with these. Most of the UX is very, very good, and that leads me to believe that all these problems will be fixed as soon as the devs get around to them.
- Some Songs aren't... amazing. Don't get confused: the soundtrack is top-notch. I'm talking about the titular Songs that you get as reward after finishing a campaign mission. Maybe I was expecting too much, but a few of them are not on the same level as the rest of the game. To be clear, this is a bit like complaining that the cutscenes aren't super polished. Which, let's be fair, they're not what most people play strategy games for. I'm reaching, I know, but I really needed a third bullet point my brother in Barya

I've been involved in the alpha testing, and it was striking to have a few passionate discussions in the feedback channels and wake up a few weeks later with a patch that addressed our concerns in a much smarter way that we could have ever come up with, as players.

The devs are receptive, careful, productive, and somehow still human beings. Am I biased because I was lucky enough to have interacted with them dozens of times? Absolutely. But, that's also why they're so great.

Oh, did I mention that they worked like mules to hotfix critical bugs as fast as possible, so many times I lost count? Or that they took the time to ask for clarification about feedback, never trying to be defensive and always making us feel listened to?


The game is a banger. But, it's too good. I can't go back to Heroes of Might and Magic, it just lacks something now. The new stack system is something I never thought I wanted, and now I can't live without it. The concept of tying mana ("essence") into unit composition, encouraging many small stacks that can be easily sniped for a morale buff, is both elegant and almost obvious in retrospect.

Even if balance isn't the main focus for such a Single-Player and Casual-MP focused game, everything you do feels so meaningful, every unit, every spell, with their place and role strongly defined, allowing for a great many combos of valid playstyles. I've been experimenting with weird build orders and unit compositions and, if you can theory-craft it, you can probably make it work.


The game draws you in and never lets go. The sound design, the art, the animations and the feel of it all... The art direction is strong, the execution is better.

The UX is so stupidly satisfying I'll get into a manual battle, even though I could lose no units in quick battle, just so I can spam the battlefield with spells and crack and splat and shoop my enemies into pulp.

Okay that's it. I can't think of a nice conclusion right now, writing all this was a bad idea. Hold my essence while I spend the entire evening bullying giant faeries from the safety of my artillery line-