Echoes of the Architects

This was a tough one to review. I'm settling on a weak thumbs-up. For context, I loved Gladiabots and it sparked a keen interest in the niche genre of autobattlers with programmable logic. I scour the Steam store every so often, but games like this are extremely rare. When I saw the sequel to Gladiabots was released, I just about jumped out of my chair and instantly bought it. I'll come back to edit my review if anything changes, but as of now, I enjoy this less than Gladiabots. For me, the biggest difference is the simplified and restricted logic (in case it has to be stated, I did flip on the "advanced" logic). I can imagine how this approach might resonate with a larger audience, but if you really enjoy logic and programming, Gladiabots did it better imo. To elaborate, the basic "brain" is limited to 4 if/then logic conditions. You can eventually switch to a faster or slower brain (measured by ticks per second), and there's a smaller and larger brain. The large brain has 6 if/then conditions. In Gladiabots, there were no artificial limitations to the logic, so you could get way more creative and intricate with the logic trees. On one hand, I can see how this adds an interesting layer of balance (faster/larger brains cost more resources to deploy), but on the other hand, this leads to overly specialized units and a few negative (in my opinion) consequences. Going through the campaign, I was mostly tinkering in the sandbox to exploit the specific weakness of the campaign stage enemy. Some strategies were more "cheesy" than others. One stage had an expensive enemy base with a big gun and I kept ending in a draw, 100% vs 100%, despite my units overwhelming theirs. So I made a single one-off unit that avoided enemy units, its only purpose was to shot one bullet at their base. Then I won 100% vs 99%. Other stages were more thoughtful, like locking down the shared resources in the middle of the map. The campaign made me realize this is way more rock-paper-scissors than Gladiabots. Generalist strategies are ineffective, and you can't cover all your needs with the limited logic. The best approach is to specialize in a specific strength while offering up a glaring weakness. This is ok for the campaign, since you can keep tinkering and rematching, but I see it as a negative for PvP. In Gladiabots, it was a satisfying loop of finding your weak areas in PvP and then adjusting your logic. In this game, with limited logic, it's more about building your Rock and hoping you get matched against Scissors instead of Paper. Of course, you can build Scissors instead of Rock, but then you're hoping to be matched against Paper. Or, you can build all three: Rock, Paper, Scissors, but then...oh wait, they already made that game. It should also be mentioned that most autobattlers boil down to rock, paper, scissors. That's certainly not unique to Echoes of the Architects. The difference being, other games have predefined units while EoA gives the illusion of unit customization. With 2-6 if/then conditions per unit, most top-tier players will end up having similar Rock, Paper, and Scissors units anyway. I enjoyed Gladiabots so much because it explicitly wasn't rock, paper, scissors. It was unrestricted logic vs logic. To wrap this up, I don't think this game is necessarily "worse" than Gladiabots, it's just a different approach that didn't resonate with me. It's more of an autobattler with extra steps than a creative logic sandbox. With that said, I don't regret the purchase and will sink more hours into this when I'm in the mood.

the main concept of the game is that you program your unit with a kind of plant of action, i've played Gladiabots, so i've assumed that devs know what they were doing in this matter. what have gone wrong then? the programing system is horrible! you have a list of keyword that you have to guess what they do like the "attack nearest enemy in my range" is actually <aproche nearest enemy until he is in my optimal range of fire then attack him> not the same thig at all. between incorrect tooltip, action that don't do what they say they do, and lacking behaveor element, it's taking all the fun away from me.

Суперская игра, реально развивает мозг и логическое мышление, заставляет УХХХ ДУМАТЬ, и 90% хейтеров просто не осилили все ее механики. В чем суть: вам дают конструктор юнитов с возможностью программировать их поведение. Программирование здесь очень простое, не пугайтесь: игра сама ведет вас за ручку, подкидывая сначала простенькие миссии, в которых нужно для победы подкрутить 1-2 параметра, а затем сложность постепенно растет, вынуждая вас потихоньку, миссия за миссией, корректировать свои программы и билды. За прохождение каждой локации вам дают очки, которые вы можете потратить на открытие новых "деталек конструктора". Кто-то там ноет, что игра использует "эхо" (слепки билдов) других игроков в кампании, но это - ложь: "эхо" используется только в режиме фриплея. В кампании боты используют заранее заготовленные пресеты и стратегии. Да, в них зачастую используются довольно дорогие штуки, которые вам могут быть недоступны (например, вы слили кучу очков апгрейда на всякую ерунду, а бот юзает норм штуки), но это все вполне преодолимо: не забывайте, что вы априори сильнее бота, ведь вы - человек! В целом, дефолтных модулей и платформ вполне достаточно, чтобы пройти как минимум первую треть кампании, используя только грамотные тайминги закупок и чудеса боевого программирования. Вы можете запрограммировать юниты так, чтобы они не перли в лоб, а заходили с флангов. Вы можете создать специальных юнитов для атаки вражеских сборщиков ресурсов, которые будут отступать при виде вооруженного противника. Вы можете сделать так, чтобы ремонтники и щитовики шли в первую очередь к самым раненым, а не ко всем подряд. И все это делается очень просто! А уж с покупкой модулей все вообще превращается в сказку. Рой мелких сборщиков, дроны-камикадзе, огромные самолеты с тремя орудиями, танки размером с пятиэтажный дом, скауты-заманиватели врагов, тачанки-застрельщики с тактикой "ударил-убежал" и еще куча-куча всего. В общем, отличная игра, всем рекомендую. P.S. Единственное что непонятно - где тут вообще сюжет, о котором написано в описании игры? Какие-то архитекторы, какие-то инопланетные вторжения... Уже 80% игры прошел, а в игре вообще ни слова про все это. Да и не нужен этой игре сюжет вовсе, это просто классная арена-конструктор. Зачем вообще эту игру назвали "Эхо Архитекторов"? Дурацкое название, которое вообще ни о чем не говорит. Легко просто пропустить игру из-за этого. Назвали бы типа "робо-колизей", "арена робототехников", "программ-боты", или типа того...

The game markets itself as an autobattler, but in actuality it mostly focuses players down to a specific play style. Want to dominate your opponent economically? sorry kiddo, the set cap of how much you are allowed to spend in a battle negates that option. take a minimal amount of damage in the start but slowly push back? whoops the timer has decided that you lose because you dont play fast enough!

I hoped that this game would be Istrolid but more complex, but it is kinda the opposite. While it has a good potencial for the future, the AI seems to work very well, I kinda miss a few things from Istrolid, so here are a few things I dislike: 1. you can not control units in any way, and all is done by AI you made 2. you are unable to make AI that makes units for you 3. options for customization are limited, compared to istrolid 4. I really think that objectives like in coh2, work significantly better than minerals like in sc2, to this type of game (they just make for more interesting AI interactions in my opinion) 5. the map is too small for me and matches are always very quick 6. units are just units, and there is no way to break something like turret or wheel, or way to flank, or make a weak and strong spots, or to make turrets with limitations like rotation speed, or how far could it rotate, in short it feels more like a blizzard style than anything else.

YES! I'm so glad I looked up this dev's previous game again (Gladiabots) I saw they made this game and I looked at it before I bought it and went YES! This game is my favorite genre. Programming games! You cant control things directly. you program them, and when something goes wrong you watch either your or the enemy bot go to some strange thing and you look at it wondering "Whaaaaaat did I tell you to do that ended up with you doing this?" And if it's yours then you can just mouse over it and on the side it lists it's current action and you read it and go "Oooooh I see, alright fix that in a moment!" This game is amazing and I'm so disappointed that people didnt investigate the game before buying and giving bad reviews. If you look at the bad reviews they boil down to "I didnt know what I was buying and now I think this is a bad game"

时间耗尽算平局 战役平局等于输 然后安排一个运输机轨道炮+炮台基地+推开敌人的只守不攻阵容硬拖平局 再然后解锁点数不给退 拿不到新东西破局直接死档 你们实在太懂EVP了

Putting Automation back in autobattlers! Echoes of the architect takes the programmable logic from Gladiabots, and adds it to a thug of war/autobattler. You design the loadout and behaviour for your units, pick a few for a given map, then make decisions about what to produce and the general buff to use. The unit programming logic is much simpler than in gladiabots, but the design is more involved. Compared to Gladiabots(which I liked a lot too), it feels more like an autobattler and less like a programming puzzle. Edit: update mid campaign: it took me time to figure it out, but once you get used to the programming system, you can have kiting railgun drones, or kamikaze hovercraft that makes you feel very clever until you get hard countered. At some other times, winning will feel like a steal, but overall, the campaign offers varied challenges, if a bit on the short side.

A unique take on Auto Battlers and RTS. This game is surprisingly well streamlined. Your collection of units starts full of simply and easy to understand units, letting you jump straight into the campaign. You don't command your units directly in game, you choose what to build and when, as well as cast your two choice abilities. Matches are at most 5 minutes against AI, and you can control the speed as well as pause the game. In Free Play, the AI that you face will be using an "Echo" of a another player's lineup and it will even mimic their build order and play style. Even after release, I encountered my own echo using my build from the demo. Unit design can be incredible simple and fast. You're able to make and deploy into your next match to test it out in minutes. You can keep it simple if you want, but when your ready to take your units above and beyond, the advanced unit behavior options are where it can get complicated, but the simple behaviors are initially present and can help guide ease you into it if your crafty. I've enjoyed playing the game in a fast pace. Your options quickly open up as you accumulate wins. If you're playing Free Play, you may get match up against someone's army that may seem too good to beat. You can go to next opponent to look for your next win for level ups and unlocks. Or you can attempt that difficult opponent as many times as you like, iterating on your unit design as you get closer and closer to beating their lineup. The speed of which you can modify your units, start a match, get the result (Win, lose, surrender, etc) is incredibly fast, so getting feedback is fast when you're experimenting. I didn't even talk about the maps yet. There's a handful of maps. They're all gonna be a rectangle with bases straight across from one another but the resources are in different locations making some maps more aggressive than others. There's massive modifiers to unit states and hazards on each map that benefit (Or harm) certain unit types more than others so one build might be good on one map but not another. I strongly recommend this game.

Great concept much like Gladiabots, but unfortunately where in Gladiabots the 5 minute timer worked and felt appropriate this game has it too, and here its entirely inappropriate. Having such a small amount of time in a resource gathering game means a whole swathe of tactics are just not possible in how you play these types of games. Most of the time just when your push is finally getting some damage on the timer ends. sure you win because you did more damage but it is in no way satisfying to spend 4 minutes getting ready to push and then having that push ended before its complete due to an arbitrary timer