Conquest of Elysium 3

No not THAT elysium. This one. It's the new Illwinter game (Dominions designer) and it looks awesome. Plays faster and is a little more RPGish. Coming out next week.

Here's a link to a great series of videos on Youtube from Paul Soares.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWiHC-i5b4

Anyone else picking this up? Are there any potential MP partners here?

Nerf Pillow.

IMAGE(http://www.doesnotwant.com/evony_fixed.jpg)

NO.

I.....uh...ummm....sorry?

This is the best thread.

Actually, this does look cool. Dominions has always been on my list of games to try, but for one reason or the other, I never have. This looks like it might be slightly more accessible, and also seems to have a not-as-crazy price point. If only it was releasing *before* the long weekend!

LobsterMobster wrote:

This is the best thread.

QFT

Tanglebones wrote:

IMAGE(http://www.doesnotwant.com/evony_fixed.jpg)

Avatared.

Tanglebones wrote:

IMAGE(http://www.doesnotwant.com/evony_fixed.jpg)

That looks photoshopped.

So, Tanglebones wins the internet, then.

This one is still my favorite:

IMAGE(http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg8/scaled.php?server=8&filename=gwjteam.png&res=medium)

Let's all take a moment to ogle that picture (disconcertingly).

I suppose suggesting that we collectively write some slashfic based on the Certis/Elysium Evony picture would be bad for my future here?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I suppose suggesting that we collectively write some slashfic based on the Certis/Elysium Evony picture would be bad for my future here?

Future smuture. It would be great!

Tom Chick has been doing a series of game diaries for this game (starting here) that make it sound really interesting. The factions seem to be much more mechanically unique than almost any strategy game I remember playing. I was already a fan of Dominions 3, so I pre-ordered this once I found out it was the same dev team.

This looks very interesting. Oh and look, it comes out in 4 days. I love that.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

I suppose suggesting that we collectively write some slashfic based on the Certis/Elysium Evony picture would be bad for my future here?

Just don't forget to include the Dannon Lite and Fit Smoothie.

Welcome, perverts

Tanglebones wrote:

IMAGE(http://www.doesnotwant.com/evony_fixed.jpg)

I'll be in my bunk.

This poor thread never stood a chance.

GWJ is about love.

I went ahead and pre-ordered but won't really get a chance to play untill tuesday. I'll post impressions asap.

According to the countdown timer on the Desura Client it should be out tomorrow ~7:00PM EST.

Well, I couldn't shove a pillow of willpower in between this game and my desire for it. Pre-ordered, and hoping it unlocks without issue tonight. I've actually never even preordered anything on Steam, much less Desura, so I'm interested to see how it goes. /is old man

necroyeti wrote:

Well, I couldn't shove a pillow of willpower in between this game and my desire for it. Pre-ordered, and hoping it unlocks without issue tonight. I've actually never even preordered anything on Steam, much less Desura, so I'm interested to see how it goes. /is old man

I was a little put off by having to use yet another DD service, but Desura seems alright. Everything seems to be in one place as in: games install in the same folder that you chose for Desura (which has been an issue for me with other services). So ya, its pretty much like steam with none of your friends on it.

As for the game: I like it. I can see putting many hours into it. I chose a Draven Queen to start off with because, we'll its a dwarven Queen. After a few restarts to learn the mechanics of the dwarfs, everything feels pretty simple, which is just the type of strategy game I prefer. I played on a large map and after a couple of hours I have what appears to be about 25% explored. I chose to fight against 2 AI, one Jester, one Baron (the 2 easiest settings). After one rather huge battle with the Jester AI he lost the map. I just happened to kill his only commander. Shortly after that I lost a battle for a valuble mine to the Baron AI and his Druid commander. He cast some type of smoke spell that blinded my ranged units then his boars, bears and dragon mopped the floor with my already diminished dwarven army. Right now I'm rebuilding and plan to send a bigger army led by my top Rune Master an hopefully claim the sapphire heavy mine.

$30 might seem a little steep for a PC game that does not have cutting edge graphics or sounds, but I would say if you like shallow end of the pool strategy games, get this. There doesn't seem to be too many other choices for this type of game right now anyway.

As far as Desura goes, it is Steam, but for the more indie inclined.

If it weren't for CKII I would have bought this at launch, but for now I'll just have to re-read my Elysium/Certis fan fic porn.

BassMadMadoo wrote:

$30 might seem a little steep for a PC game that does not have cutting edge graphics or sounds, but I would say if you like shallow end of the pool strategy games, get this. There doesn't seem to be too many other choices for this type of game right now anyway.

I bought the game and messed around with it for a couple hours last night, and I would mostly agree with that statement. I would only question the "shallow end of the pool strategy games" part of it. The game to me feels like a streamlined Dominions 3, so while it is less complicated than that, that still leaves quite a bit of room for complexity available. There are 17 playable "classes" (races seems like it could also be used as a descriptor here), most of which have a somewhat unique mechanic (or two or three). The combat system has plenty of depth to it (with different damage types, armor, strength, all sorts of special abilities and immunities, spells, etc.), and there would seem to be a quite large assortment of units.

I am finding that at least so far it scratches the Dominion 3 itch, without being any where near as demanding or finicky. Although it does share some of the questionable UI of Dominions 3 also unfortunately (not as bad because you don't have to do as much, maybe it will seem better after more time with it).

I just finished my second full game and am really enjoying this so far.

My game was on a large map against 2 default difficulty AI and took around 6 hours. I was playing as the Enchanter class, which meant that I could create powerful golems but needed a lot of iron to do it. In the early game I got into a war of attrition against the Roman AI but was lucky enough to have plentiful resources around my starting base to stay on the winning side. In the mid-game I discovered that the Warlock AI seemed to be doing alright over in the west. The Romans were on the ropes though, so I focused on finishing them off. Then I went to welcome the Warlocks, to discover that he had amassed three killer stacks (anywhere from 55 to 140 units, many of them powerful magic units).

So I wasn't going to be able to kill all of his commanders (my biggest stack was around 20). One of the other ways you can win is by occupying all of the opponents cities and so I put together the best army I could and snuck around to his rear and began taking over his cities. This lengthened the game but ultimately I couldn't occupy his cities faster than he could retake them.

What this game really needs is a post-game breakdown. It just dumps you straight back to the menu. It would be great to have timeline plots of each units resources, units, etc.

Pacman wrote:
BassMadMadoo wrote:

$30 might seem a little steep for a PC game that does not have cutting edge graphics or sounds, but I would say if you like shallow end of the pool strategy games, get this. There doesn't seem to be too many other choices for this type of game right now anyway.

I bought the game and messed around with it for a couple hours last night, and I would mostly agree with that statement. I would only question the "shallow end of the pool strategy games" part of it.....

Agreed. There is a lot of depth in the strategy. But I know a lot of boardies enjoy games like EU3 and CK2 and even AI War, I'm throwing those in the same pool. I don't think this comes close to the complexity of those titles. And for me, thats a good thing.

I started a new games as a Baron and was out marching my troops around, exploring. As I was about 10 squares away from my castle, a halfling with 4 moose rolled into my castle and cast my empire in ruin. =(