Godking: Master of Rituals

As stated by many others, it is similar in nature to Conquest of Elysium or Dominions but to me it feels more like a poor copy than a proper advancement or even homage to those titles. Here's why:[hr][h1]Strategic Depth[/h1][/hr][hr][/hr]90% of strategy is choosing which units to buy and how to ferry them around. Most of the "passive" abilities on units are fairly ignorable. Figure out which units are "good" and which are "bad" and just stack the good units to win. In example, Alfendor Archers are unilaterally broken so if you are playing Alfendor, stack archers to win. [hr][/hr]In CoE/Dominions you have more control over the strategy of your units or the position on the battlefield, and the combat spellcasting can determine the outcome of the battle. All of that strategic depth seems to be missing here. I can't decide, for instance, to just have 10 necromancers in my army and summon a dumb amount of skeletons as my primary combat strategy. Or stack 100 archers and cast fire arrows to exploit my opponents weakness to fire. No, here you are just buying units and stacking them into armies to meat grind against the enemy armies. [hr][/hr]The same strategic depth issue exists on the overland map. The "tech tree" for each faction is just some rather cheap buildings in their main city. It takes very little time to get through it but it doesn't really change the core gameplay. There is no late game/early game divide in strategy. There are no interesting decisions to be made. Just buy the cheap upgrades and keep stacking units. [hr][/hr]The only seemingly interesting decision is that you can choose a leader from one faction to "lead" a different faction. I guess this is their attempt to copy the pretender creation from Dominions but IMO it does not alleviate the strategic depth issue. You aren't choosing between faction power vs pretender power or defining your core strategy, you are just changing your starting unit.[hr][/hr][h1]Balance[/h1][hr][/hr]I tried playing Chaos first and the early game was a nightmare. 3 failed starts with them so I tried Alfendor and it was a walk in the park from turn 1. I tried the returned and the early game was also a tedious nightmare. I enjoy the variety of gameplay but I dont think the balance is there between factions.[hr][/hr]The enemy seems to snowball very slowly but also INDEPENDENTLY of the amount of income structures they were able to control. Why? This is classic feels-bad 4x design. I cornered an enemy into only owning its home castle on ~turn 15 or 20 and by the time I raised an army big enough to challenge them in their castle and ferry it to them, they had doubled the size of their army. Tim Allen says "HWWHAAA?" In contrast, 100 turns later on the other side of the map the final enemy I killed had almost exactly the same size garrison. So once I generated armies capable of dealing with that first faction on turn 20ish the rest of the game was almost entirely determined to be victory for me but still took me 100+ turns to get there. I don't think the AI is actually "playing" but instead just generating units on a timer up to a limit and making meager attempts at expansion.[hr][/hr][h1]Tedium[/h1][hr][/hr]As is the case with many of these games you inevitably end up with dozens of champions running around ferrying units and items to the front lines. There's no tech tree or anything to alleviate this issue. You can pay close attention to the types of units you are recruiting and try to recruit only fast moving units to make the process quicker but it is tedious either way. It is basically 1-2 hexes per turn per army unless you recruit only fast units or scouts. [hr][/hr]In my playthrough a lot of my commanders had rituals they could cast after moving, so for each commander to move I had to click multiple times to confirm that all I wanted them to do was move and nothing else. Also, in the mid game I found a large amount of "Neutral" creatures roaming the map with very low power. I never took a single casualty fighting these creatures but I had to clean them up to prevent them taking my buildings back etc. about 40 completely pointless combat sequences for me. None of these squads were interesting to fight.[hr][/hr][h1]Polish[/h1][hr][/hr]Given the lack of strategic depth the way that this game could differentiate itself positively from Illwinter's games is through a superior level of polish and QOL experience. Sadly, I think this is where Godking is at its weakest. The text, for me, was readable but very uncomfortable to look at in many places. If I didn't have 20/20 vision I think much of the text would be unreadable. Icons in the home city denoting the type of unit you are recruiting (melee, archer, etc) were hard to look at and differentiate. Units which I had set on "autocast" for their abilities occasionally got knocked out of this mode and had to be reset, despite me having plenty of resources to keep casting the ability. Units which I had previously set to go to a far part of the map had to be reminded with 3-4 clicks EVERY TURN to confirm that I wanted them to keep moving. Battle AI produces some nonsensical results in certain circumstances. Neutral resource generators on the map seem to be generated completely randomly which creates some real bad feels in the early game when you are surrounded by too-hard-to siege garrisons and no easy-to-get towns or farms.[hr][/hr][h1]Conclusion[/h1][hr][/hr]The game isn't all bad, it does have a similar feel to Illwinter's games but I don't think it brings enough to the table to warrant its own entry. If this game looks in any way interesting then you should probably be playing Dominions, Conquest of Elysium, or going to another 4x series entirely.

[h1]IN A WORD: [b] LACKING [/b][/h1] [h1]IN A NUTSHELL:[/h1] [quote=] [b]WHAT TO EXPECT:[/b] Fantasy 4X turn-based strategy. Basic global maps. Command a single capital city. Capture neutral or enemy settlements. Automated turn-based battles. Impressive range of warrior gods. Decent number of factions with good variety. Good-sized champion led armies. Dozens of derivative unit classes. Numerous commander types. Two spells types and artefacts to equip. Basic 4x gameplay. Units can level-up. No diplomacy. No tech research. Missing a load of QoL. Single-player only. [b]ACHIEVEMENTS:[/b] NONE. [b]STATUS:[/b] RELEASED PREMATURELY. [b]WHEN TO BUY:[/b] ONLY IF LOOKING FOR CASUAL OR LITE 4x[/quote] [i]More info below....[/i] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2509738053 [h1]THE LOWDOWN:[/h1] Godking: Master of Rituals (G:MoR) is a turn-based 4x strategy game with automated battles fought on anonymous battlefields between opposing armies. The game is set in a fantasy land and played on a dynamically generated, hex-tiled world map. Before beginning each game players must set-up the game world; opting for a faction to play and a warrior God to lead them. There are three map sizes to choose from. Eight factions with their own unit classes and nine unique warrior gods to take charge of. Gameplay follows the basic tenets of 4x games. Protect a capital city, the hub of each empire and vanquish every other faction on the map. Every turn up to four resources are acquired and used in construction of capital upgrades or to recruit more units and commanders. Armies are formed by assigning a commander to lead them. These are sent to explore the immediate vicinity and reveal what lies within the fog of war. Their aim is to discover neutral or enemy settlements, so these can be conquered and to uncover the activities of the enemy. To eventually expand the empire and gain more resources per turn to purchase further capital upgrades, units and commanders. With stronger forces the empire can then exploit these gains, build larger armies and eventually go on to exterminate their rivals. <REDACTED BY THE OMNIPOTENT DEITY OF YOUR CHOICE> https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2507551805 [h1]THE GOOD:[/h1] + Good replayability with 8x unique playable factions, each with their own set of units, spells and playable strategies. + Detailed combat engine with movement by ranks, spell-casting, ranged attack and melee combat. + Visually beautiful automated combat engine with colourful 3D models. But minimal battlefield landscapes. + Good army composition options. Units types are mounted, ranged, can fly, cast spells, melee, extended melee and others. + Soundtrack that adds to the general ambience. [h1]THE BAD:[/h1] - No combat interaction. None at all. - Missing feature: No diplomacy. - Missing feature: No research/research tree. - Needs alot of QoL: artefact and army distribution, more options on army formation screen, controlling multiple commanders in same army is problematic. - Poor map movement. Units move one tile at a time. Cannot set movement paths or undo moves on world map. - Basic enemy AI. Built just to provide an obstacle to victory. Performance issues. PC noticeably slows down when running the game. Core i5 8GB ram. - GUI suffers from terrible scaling. Need perfect vision to read some of the text. - No game setup randomiser. [h1]AND THE REST:[/h1] * The beginnings of a good 4x fantasy experience. * Randomly generated maps with randomly placed holdings, defences?, magical artefacts, treasure chests and wandering monsters. * Ten unique God-like incarnations. Each with their own passive abilities, combat stats, spells and strategies. Can be used in conjunction with any faction, providing the only real replayability. * Large selection of magic spells divided into Rituals and Combat. Comparable to techs but not requiring research. * Ten capitol upgrades. Unlocked sequentially when certain upgrades are built. Also unlock new units and commanders for recruitment. * Basic army formation screen that separates units into ranks and allows transfer from one group to another. * Large number of artefacts that drop during combat. Equipped on commanders and warrior-gods to augment stats. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2512278983 [h1]ANALYSIS:[/h1] G:MoR turned out to be a visually impressive game. One built on a solid concept but a flawed execution. Lacking some of the detailed features associated with the 4x genre. A likely consequence of the devs striving for streamlined gameplay. Though it is difficult to know for sure what the roadmap entailed, had it not left EA so early. Given its current state anyone expecting G:MoR to retain a good level of depth and complexity, may be more than disappointed. Its combat-centric approach eventually becomes very repetitive. Overall the game painted a mixed picture of the experience that awaited players. An automated combat system looked substantial, but little else did. Ritual spells, combat spells, factions, commanders and artefacts all showed signs of being fleshed out. As was Army management and the unit roster. Game setup was thread-bare. Diplomacy and research were non-existent. Joining a below par GUI requiring a fair amount of additions, particularly scaling to make the text readable. All the missing functionality pointed to an incomplete game, released too early. Likely another case of the developers running out of funds, time or both. Yet on some level there is a playable game here. Just not one that should necessarily be called 4x strategy. Maybe 4x strategy lite would be a better fit! Game set-up proved to be basic. The amount of starting factions and warrior gods were acceptable out of the box. Distinct in nature and possessing the strengths and weaknesses to have their own particular strategy or play-style. Enough to persuade players to try each of them. Particularly pleasing were how warrior gods could be mixed and matched with whichever faction was preferred. Rather than stay with their own race. Factions also had their own resources to cultivate. Though why other factions did not gather these, so they could be appropriated after a defeat escaped me. A randomising option would have been most welcome. <REDACTED BY THE OMNIPOTENT DEITY OF YOUR CHOICE> [h1]VERDICT:[/h1] Godking: Master of Rituals has a little to offer someone looking for a turn-based, fantasy strategy experience. Unfortunately there does not seem enough for a full game in the 4x genre. With a good deal of features missing it is pretty fair to make the assumption that G:MoR was released to get something playable out of the door. Likely due to time or funding running out. <REDACTED BY THE OMNIPOTENT DEITY OF YOUR CHOICE> [h1]FULL REVIEW:[/h1] The full review can be found off-Steam at: [url=https://turnbasedlovers.com/review/godking-master-of-rituals-review/] TurnbasedLover.com[/url]. [quote=]Thank you for reading. | Follow my curator[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40556040-The-Irregular-Gamer//] here[/url]. | Key provided by [url=https://turnbasedlovers.com/]Turnbased Lovers[/url][/quote]

I feel forced to give a negative review to set a better perspective for potential buyers... I watched the title for a while in the hope to get a discount. But well, today I got bored and thought, ♥♥♥♥ it lets go. Well, what can I say... The game itself is a good concept by design. But I still wont recommend it because thats literally it. For the hefty pricetag this just isn't enough for me. It grabs ideas from different outher titles to merge them to a nice new product. Unfortunatly I can get every concept for a much lower pricetag much more fleshed out in multiple other games. Don't get me wrong, if this conglomerate ever gets polished out and enhanced with dozens QoL additions, this will propably be a nice game. Right now it just is not. By no means bad, but for what you get the pricetag is way out of proportion. I am happy supporting various EA- and kickstarter titles, but this one requires an immense leap of faith on the customer side. I think a potential buyer should know about that, therefore the negative review at this point. Year later Edit: Well, everything feared happened. They pretty much released it soon after my initial review. One guy tried to contact me to change it. Voila, now it's abandonware. Oh yeah, did I mention that I paid more money in EA than the actual price on releaseday?

< - - - The Introduction - - - > „Victory! We captured the Capital of IMPERATUS!“ „Excellent! Four Factions to go. Those Ratfaction was a Tough Enemy.“ „THE RETURNED! They are coming from the South!“ „Oh no. I should have known that they are near and want a piece of Cake.“ „What shall we do? The Last Battle weakened us.“ „Call for reinforcements! We must defend this Capital. And dont forget. Our God is with us. He send his reincarnation, we will be their doom!“ „They`re attacking!“ „For ALFENDOR! To victory!!!“ A typical Battle Situation that need to be handled. So, dear Reader welcome to GODKING: MASTER OF RITUALS. < - - - The Story so far - - - > GODKING doesn`t really have a story. Simply said, there are different Fantasy Factions at War and only one can be victorious. Well, this Game is in early Access, maybe we get some Story one day. On the other Hand, the Factions are really different from each other and very detailed, that only a look at a Faction can tell a Background, just in your Backhead, when you play them. As i like to say: with a little Fantasy, you can get Fantasy. < - - - The Gameplay - - - > GODKING is an amazing take on to many Years of Strategy Games. A very nice Mix of Classic Games like AGE OF WONDERS, LORDS OF MAGIC, EADOR and so many other Games. At first you have to choose your Faction. All Factions are very different from each other. Undead, Lizzards, Rats, Humans, Insects and many more Factions are waiting for your Orders. After that you have to Choose a God Incarnation, a very Special Powerfull Unit, that represents you, the player. That can be a Powerfull Shaman, a Wraight Lord or also a Dragon. They all have their special abilities. After that, enter your Name, choose a faction Colour and choose from 3 Map Sizes. You begin in your Capitol. This City is really important. If this City will be captured by other Factions, you will instantly loose the Game, no matter how big your Empire is at this moment. Always have an Army ready to defend it. The Map is a Hexagon Map like in typical classic Games and is very detailled. Explore the Map with your Armies and conquer. There are many Opportunities for Fighting and getting Loot. You have 3 Ressources. Gold, Food, Mana. Have always an eye on them, you need them to recruit Units. You can raise them while capturing other places like Farms for example. You can also get Spells and Upgrades. When it comes to battle you just have to lay back and watch. Yes, you read right. All the Battles will be done automatically. That is different from other Games like this. You are able to speed them up, if it is to slow for you, or just end it directly with the War Stats. The Developer did an amazing Job with all the Units. I`ve rarely seen so many different Units of all kind. Well done. < - - - The Impressions - - - > What i mostly like is the automatic Fighting. Don`t get me wrong, i like Games like KINGS BOUNTY, HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC and others and their fighting Systems, but it is also good to have a game without it. Just raise your Army with simple and minimum Micro Management and enjoy the Battles by watching. Explore and conquer the Map in the good old classic way, beat the others. On the other Hand, i´m missing a Difficulty Setting. There is only one Difficulty. It would be also nice to have more Win options, not only the last One wins. I know there is very much work in this Game, but in my opinion the Price is a little bit too high for what you get. I know this is early Access and there is more to come. The Developer are working hard on their Game, bringing updates and listen to the Community. I´m sure in the end, all will fit. I enjoyed GODKING very much and i like to thank the Developer for giving me the Chance to play this Game. Thank you. < - - - Famous last Words - - - > If you want to play Fantasy Strategy in the good old classic way, with Fokus on Exploring and Conquering a Map with Automatic Fights and less Micro Management, then this is for you. Enjoy and thank you for reading. [h1][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26335619-Adult-World-Gamers/] You like this Review and want to read more like this? Then Follow our AWG Curator! You`re always welcome. [/url][/h1]

While I appreciate the attempt to make a nice looking game I just cannot recommend this game. This game is a spectator game and not a real 4x strategy game. I am glad I only paid $16.49 for this game. Personally if I wanted to be a spectator I'd rather watch a movie at least it has a story to watch that keeps you entertained. Folks just stick with Legendary Heroes Fallen Enchantress,Age of Wonders 3,Deity Empires,Warlock 2 & Eador Masters of the Broken world. You have full control over your units and you being a human your brain actually gets stimulated since you need to make decisions for your units instead of watch them fight with no direct control in this game... I also could not get into Dominons 4 or 5 to much even though it had deep gameplay it is another spectator game. At the time of writing this review this game only has 15 reviews on steam and it has been out for months so it is obvious people just are not to interested in being a spectator. I hate to give a bad review but I have to keep it real as many may end up paying $39.99 for a overpriced early access spectator game when u can easily find it for under 20 bucks if u search the internet and the design team does not want you to know this since they put one of my posts as a private message when I mentioned how much I got their game for. It is bad enough that you cannot control your units but then over charging for a game that is not fun at all? I just do not want to see folks get ripped off when they would rather me be quite because I care about others and wanted to take some time to write this review if folks are looking at this game and thinking of getting it. If you look at all the positive reviews for this game your going to notice not much playtime it is because gamer's do not enjoy this game for any length of time I hate to knock on this game as I know they are trying to create a fun game experience but when you are a spectator it lacks stimulation to the human brain compared to games I mentioned above where your brain is active making decisions. It is like watching somebody exercise compared to actually doing it feeling the burn and effect that about sums it up or watching somebody drink wine compared to drinking wine yourself and enjoying 80s music. Or watching somebody goto the bank to deposit big money would you rather watch somebody do it or do it yourself? Or here is a better one watching somebody eat pizza compared to eating pizza yourself or seafood buffet watching somebody enjoy all you can eat crab legs and shrimp while you sit idle as a spectator. I rest my case. Anyways in my opinion if u want to utilize the graphics which I think is done good give direct control over your units and I may change my review to a positive and may try this game some more. Folks I highly suggest you put your time and money elsewhere since the developers here don't really care about player suggestions at all that being having direct control over your units. I mentioned having direct control over your units to the developers they seem more interested in what the developers want and not what actual gamers want when it is the gamers that have the money which support their gaming projects. Put your money somewhere else with developers that actually listen and need your support money where gamers would gladly pay top dollars for features seen with a game they want to play. I got Deity Empires for 2 bucks and have over 800 hours in that game and have played it for more then a year so yes I am resourceful to know how to find deals and it was the best 2 bucks I ever spent. Godking is a rip off spectator game with no player requested features being able to control your units with game. I am not talking about the world map I am talking about when battle commences. This concludes my review thanks for reading Take Care & God Bless, Ronnie

If you have played Conquest of Elysium and thought "Man, this game would be better if it sacrificed 75% of it's strategic depth, content, and variability for some better graphics", then I guess you should buy this game. For the rest of us, there are just a lot of better options. I honestly thought this game would be in early access though mid 2021, and was surprised to hear that it had released in the state it did. I would refund it if I could.

Full disclosure, I refunded this game after half an hour. I am an avid 4X player and this just isn't a 4X, it's a 3X at best. It's like the shell of a 4X. No tactical combat, only 4 resources to manage, it's just not a good 4X is you have played good 4X games.

[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6142328/][b]Like this Review? Follow The Cpt Froggy Club Curator Page for plenty more![/b][/url][/quote] After starting a new game you’ll have the choice to choose a Faction. There are Eight factions on offer to you, Alfendor, Imperatus, United Tribes, Mercia, Blackbog, Scaleborne and Khaoset. To help you choose which faction to play as there’s some information about then which details their Lore, Playstyle & Strategy, Holding Upgrades, Ritual Spells, Commanders, Recruits and Summons. Next you will have to choose your Incarnate (leader) from the Ten on offer to you. Each Incarnate has some information on them such as Lore, Playstyle & Strategy, Ritual Spells, Traits and Summons. Next you can give yourself a name and choose a colour from the twelve on off to you. You can also set the World Size (Small, Medium or Large), you can also choose the number of AI Enemies Factions to play against. Upon deciding on your faction etcetera you’ll find yourself on the World Map at your fortified base. As I played as the faction Alfendor my home base was the castle city of Alvedal. The aim of the game is to capture all the enemy Faction’s Headquarters which are scattered around the map somewhere to be victorious. However, should your Headquarters fall then you’ll lose the game. To help protect your base you will need to recruit units and have them stationed at your base. From your headquarters you’ll be able to recruit new Commanders, Units, Activate Upgrades and manage your Garrison. New Commanders and Units will cost some resources to recruit, Gold or Food. Each turn you will be able to recruit One Commander and you can recruit Three new recruits. The world map is covered by the Fog of War so you’ll have to uncover what lies around your starting point by venturing out into the unknown. As you do so you’ll uncover new areas along with new locations such as Farms, Quarries, Mills, Bandit Camps etcetera. Moving in to these locations will give you some resources each turn, some of these locations will have enemies within them and you’ll have to battle those enemies before being able to reap the rewards each turn. You can also recruit new units and commanders from various locations once you have control of them. However, they can be taken over by enemy and if this happens, you’ll lose any resources. Also roaming the land are the other factions along with creatures, there Power is indicated above them, this is also the same for locations. So, you will know how strong something is before you attack. You attack by moving onto the same tile as your enemy or entering a location. Battle will then commence at the end of your turn; the battle screen will then open displaying yours and the enemy's armies on the field. The battle will playout automatically with the winner the one with units left on the field. After defeating your enemy you’ll gain some Experience Points and may be some Artifacts which will give some bonus to one of your units when equipped. In the Options you’ll find Video (Resolution, Full Screen, Enable V-Sync and Enable Battlefield Grass). Audio (Master, Music, Sound Effects and Ambience Volume Sliders). General (Select Headquarters at End of Cycle, Centre on Commander After Every Move, Skip Summoning Visualisation , Skip World Map Animations and UI Zoom). Controls (Edge Scrolling and Remap Key Binds). While I have enjoyed playing Godking: Master of Rituals so far, I don’t think that it’s a game for the more hardcore strategists out there. While there is a tutorial it’s not a hands-on tutorial, so it’s more of a play and figure things out yourself. This isn’t a bad thing as the game is easy to learn. It looks good and runs well. Positives + Good graphics + Multiple factions + Easy to play Negatives - No achievements - No cards currently Choose your Faction and lead them into battle against the other Factions across the lands as you seek to become the Godking: Master of Rituals 6/10 [quote]Key provided by developer/publisher for review purposes via THE CPT FROGGY CLUB! Any opinions expressed are entirely my own! [/quote] [quote]For more reviews, great game giveaways and much more. Come join us @ www.Zeepond.Com and [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/thecptfroggyclub]The Cpt Froggy Club[/url] Steam Group[/quote]

TL;DR - No. It may look cool, but there's no game here. Bad AI. Bad Faction design. No MP. Buy Conquest of Elysium instead (if you can stand the graphics ;). I'll keep this review short and simple. Godking is a rip off of Conquest of Elysium with 3D graphics. It was released early, sort of half baked, with imbalanced and flat factions. The designers failed to grasp the key aspects of what makes CoE fun, but other than the lack of interesting faction design, hidden upgrade paths, etc. the two games are pretty similar. They did, instead, add a few alternate features, primarily in the realm of army layout/management, movement, citadel types and resource handling (which one could claim was better or worse by taste). Beyond the half-baked random factions (which number too few as well), overall the AI is *terrible*. Given the lack of MP as well, this game is pretty insulting at the price point, and even if it were free, is more of a prototype than a game (such that you might play each faction once just to see and then never play again). I had some hopes that it would improve during EA, and even at release hoped they would, as they claimed, follow up with future patches and improvements as I'm sure many of these glaring gaps were apparent to the developers as well, but they appear to have abandoned it instead. For a game with a triple-A price, this is rather a travesty.

Not as good as Dominions but a solid 7/10: It is Dominions very/semi-light with a slight QoL upgrade. Explore Expand Exterminate Expunge Ex-sanguinate Yeah ok. It is more about kill kill kill than any really deep strategic level of gameplay. Play every faction once against the AI then your next step to get anything else out of the game is multiplayer. This is where I think it would shine. Because, vs AI, all you are doing is figuring out which units to stack and pump them out of your city til you have a death stack and go stomp the capitals. For instance as Khaosate, get the yellow 2 reach cleaving hero units that have a high regen and stack flying stunner range critters and summon stun dogs. As Mercia, park your boss and pump out Red Dragons and find some Mountain Giant Lairs and recruit them. So, figure out your killer units and wipe the map. Rinse repeat with each faction. Formulaic. BUT it's so much fun finding that out. HOWEVER, if you have played Dominions you are always wondering how much better this game could be if you had its level of army customisability. This game plonks your cav behind infantry sometimes and they never get out of the block form the start of a fight. In Dominions you can put all your inf on a narrow centre front and then place your cav on the wings with seperate script orders to charge the back line of archers. Grrrrrr. Dominions really is better.