Conquest of Elysium 5

7 hours in and i'm enjoying myself a lot with this expansive rogue empire builder, I bought dominions 6 a week earlier and found a lot there to my liking already, except for the micro manage aspect of life which in my opinion is a lot better done in Shadow Empire and Warhammer 3 (TWWH3), which is a challenge in its own way. After watching some video's and the summer discount persuaded me to take a look into Elysium also and boy! what a good decision i made. Had some short ventures into the world as a Trader and now truly found my spot as a Warlock! I am a Warlock... for now , anyway, i even like the battle solution more than what you find in Dominions 6, most people know what to expect from an Ilwinter Design game so i'll leave the specifics out and like to end with, that this game is a truly a bargain at any price point! So you rigid 2d ww fanatics and other board game players on the pc, take a look at this gem and go have some fun... PeaCe -out

for intelligent individuals

Its more simple than it looks like

I'm not really that much of a strategy game enjoyer but this game is an exception for me. Well, it's lightweight, and yet it has a sh1t ton of content for you to enjoy, good music that you'll unfortunately grow desensitized to, and it's exceptionally addicting to play. Some people dislike the random factor of the game. You could get your capital taken over because a bunch of fire elementals came out of some random volcano. But what if you could instead take it over and use the gateway to get access to extra resources hidden in another plane of existence? (well bad example but you get what i mean.) It's frustrating sometimes to get armies wiped out from a few void horrors that came from a pyramid, but i think the game improves with experience, as you realize gimicks and ways to utilize various random events that happen, the game gets more enjoyable in my opinon. I don't have friends that play this game so i cannot say much about multiplayer, but i do enjoy modding the game a small amount, my favorite one so far is the Myconid Lord, give it a try. Problems: - There should be a "commitment mode" because i feel inclined to save scum a lot because only manual saves exist, and outside of that there aren't any autosaves, - I feel like the different planes of existence are sparely utilized, being locked away by a certain class or relying on a random event / artifact for them to be accessible. Other than the Sky/Agartha, many planes aren't even worth risking going into due to the ample amounts of danger you would need to be exclusively prepared for, which considering all the other bullsh1t you need to watch out for is entirely not worth it. As a side note, the planes were very fun to explore, as i dominated all of elysium and managed to get the only other enemy faction, the Guildmaster, in state where i would come and thin his armies every now and then, and in the meantime conquered all of the planes excluding Void and Hades. I think a PVE gamemode would suit the game well, but it might get boring after a while, so i'm not sure.

It is absolutly addicting to play, tons of fun, tons of replayability, tons of vareity, just amazing.

Honestly becoming my favorite sandbox game

I give this game an overall thumbs up, here's some pros and cons. Pros: The game is extremely intricate, especially when it comes to spellcasters and magic of all kinds; spells are varied, unique, and interesting and drastically turn the tides in battles, leading to infinite replayability. Speaking of battles, I do enjoy the hands-off combat, it's nice to sit back and watch two large armies duke it out without ANY form of micromanagement. There's MANY classes to choose from, each with radically different play styles that actually make you feel like a druid taming the wilds and its creatures, demonologists making risky bargains with lords of Inferno, witches thriving in poison bogs, or even just some rich punk senator declaring himself King of Elysium. The classes are pretty well balanced, even if the classes limited by RNG summons betraying them always seem to fall short of the classes where summons reliably obey. Beyond the main plane of Elysium, you can visit many other planes and fight demons, angels, elemental monstrosities, or mindbending horrors of a terrifying realm that changes every turn. Servers are easy to set up, easy to mod, easy to pause and come back to, and work very well. The game itself runs very well, even with 24 AI a hundred turns into a game, it only takes seconds to calculate each turn. I've got the game working on a steam controller, as everything in the game has a hotkey for quick use. Cons: The AI can get a little predictable, if you don't have a group to play with you'll be stuck with a bot that's not all that bright and follows pretty predictable patterns; oftentimes they'll die themselves in the first few turns. This may also be due to the obscene starting conditions liable to be given to anyone, I've seen starts that simply mean a loss in the first turn no matter the choices made. There are difficulty settings for the AI, but all they do is buff the enemy's wealth production (something the game simply doesn't explain). There's an inexcusable lack of a tutorial, and many things are simply never explained whatsoever; this makes learning the game obscenely frustrating, especially considering the entire wiki is about the length of this review. Sometimes, such as when buying artifacts, you simply have no clue what effect these items or units do, because there is literally no explanation in-game until you dedicate the funds; makes learning the game so frustrating. There are some glaring balance issues, such as some classes relying on the correct "era" to play effectively; what's a king with no kingdom to rule? Also, Horrors (overpowered units that randomly roam the map), they suck and I hate them lmao.