I've tried bigging up this game over on RLLMUK however it's going unnoticed. It's only sold 2,000 copies which is not only a crime, but goes to show us why we can't have nice things.
-----
Alright, so I've had a number of goes at the conquest mode and I'm impressed! This is really difficult to explain as there is a lot going on... But I'll try. It's kind of like a single-player survival board game where instead of rolling dice you have to fight enemies in a Bayonetta Alfheim setting. I won't talk too much about the combat because I'm crap at it right now.
You start with one guy at your disposal, and each turn you must address parts of the map for either expansion, reward, or to deter various threats which take their toll on your progress. This is very restrictive at first as you can only have one battle per turn, however you will soon unlock more guys along the way either through random conscripts or via the game's item card system. Let's say you have three 'Aztez' (men/lives) at your disposal at the beginning of a turn, this means you get three attempts at battles across your map. Once spent up it's the end of your turn. If you get killed during a battle then you lose a man permanently, meaning he won't replenish on your next turn.
A battle at one of your cities will naturally consist of you versus a small number of enemies. Other than just killing stuff as fast as you can you have bonus criteria to fulfill for bonus rewards. Things like complete the round without getting hit, perform three sacrifices, finish in under 50 secs, score a combo of 80 or over, etc. At the beginning you're up against the standard slow-coach freezer meat which you can mindlessly mash through, it's really pointless learning their tells because they are so slow and useless. Things soon warm up though as during the mid-game you're faced with much faster teleporting enemies and the like.
Like in a game of Civ after each turn your cities grant you resources. Resources can be spent on things like preventing dissent or capturing cities to expand your civilisation. After the going got rough for me just now I was able to alleviate the onslaught by spending some resources to buy myself some time until my next turn. There are also weather conditions which take effect on this income such as drought and rains, not sure what they do exactly but their effects also carry over into the battles, at least aesthetically.
There are lots of neat little tricks to find out. For instance I've only just worked out that you can combat a neutral city going into dissent by preemptively 'buying it out' using the liberation power for a number of resources rather than sending one of your dudes in to prevent this by force (there are also item cards which do this too). This is way more beneficial as you can save one of your available dudes during your turn and use him on something else instead like expansion or reward, or to address a more important red marker event (if you don't stop these red alerts then you're going to get ****ed for it later - they generally do nasty stuff to your map). There are other colours for events too, such as blue for festivals (kind of like crazy infinite bonus stages where you can go for broke fulfilling criteria without fear of losing an Aztez/man/life) and yellow for bulk resource drops or special/rare items.
The difficulty system really is novel for this kind of game. I was complaining about the really long delays between audio cue and attack, right? Well as you progress you unlock tougher enemies which are waaaay snappier. On my final go just now I managed to work my way up to Spanish invasions and these conquistador boys have guns at their disposal. I'd never fought these before so they made absolute mince meat out of me. A nice touch is that once you face a new enemy type in the conquest it unlocks them in the arena/practice mode where you can go in to break them down until you master them. I'm absolutely rubbish at fighting right now as I've been working out this conquest mode. Now that I know what needs to be done with the map I'll master all of the enemy types I've unlocked so far so that I can go back to conquest and push even further without getting wasted as much.
I've only unlocked a couple of weapons so far however their utility is overwhelming right now. I want to master the basic sword first before moving to something else. You can also unlock the clothing of the enemies and play mix and match dress-up which is quite nice. Currently just traded in my Aztec head feathers for a skull mask, which is a bit more boss.
This guy does a way better job of explaining things:
Currently only on Steam ($19.99) - but heading to all consoles very soon, so I'm told.
-----
Alright, so I've had a number of goes at the conquest mode and I'm impressed! This is really difficult to explain as there is a lot going on... But I'll try. It's kind of like a single-player survival board game where instead of rolling dice you have to fight enemies in a Bayonetta Alfheim setting. I won't talk too much about the combat because I'm crap at it right now.
You start with one guy at your disposal, and each turn you must address parts of the map for either expansion, reward, or to deter various threats which take their toll on your progress. This is very restrictive at first as you can only have one battle per turn, however you will soon unlock more guys along the way either through random conscripts or via the game's item card system. Let's say you have three 'Aztez' (men/lives) at your disposal at the beginning of a turn, this means you get three attempts at battles across your map. Once spent up it's the end of your turn. If you get killed during a battle then you lose a man permanently, meaning he won't replenish on your next turn.
A battle at one of your cities will naturally consist of you versus a small number of enemies. Other than just killing stuff as fast as you can you have bonus criteria to fulfill for bonus rewards. Things like complete the round without getting hit, perform three sacrifices, finish in under 50 secs, score a combo of 80 or over, etc. At the beginning you're up against the standard slow-coach freezer meat which you can mindlessly mash through, it's really pointless learning their tells because they are so slow and useless. Things soon warm up though as during the mid-game you're faced with much faster teleporting enemies and the like.
Like in a game of Civ after each turn your cities grant you resources. Resources can be spent on things like preventing dissent or capturing cities to expand your civilisation. After the going got rough for me just now I was able to alleviate the onslaught by spending some resources to buy myself some time until my next turn. There are also weather conditions which take effect on this income such as drought and rains, not sure what they do exactly but their effects also carry over into the battles, at least aesthetically.
There are lots of neat little tricks to find out. For instance I've only just worked out that you can combat a neutral city going into dissent by preemptively 'buying it out' using the liberation power for a number of resources rather than sending one of your dudes in to prevent this by force (there are also item cards which do this too). This is way more beneficial as you can save one of your available dudes during your turn and use him on something else instead like expansion or reward, or to address a more important red marker event (if you don't stop these red alerts then you're going to get ****ed for it later - they generally do nasty stuff to your map). There are other colours for events too, such as blue for festivals (kind of like crazy infinite bonus stages where you can go for broke fulfilling criteria without fear of losing an Aztez/man/life) and yellow for bulk resource drops or special/rare items.
The difficulty system really is novel for this kind of game. I was complaining about the really long delays between audio cue and attack, right? Well as you progress you unlock tougher enemies which are waaaay snappier. On my final go just now I managed to work my way up to Spanish invasions and these conquistador boys have guns at their disposal. I'd never fought these before so they made absolute mince meat out of me. A nice touch is that once you face a new enemy type in the conquest it unlocks them in the arena/practice mode where you can go in to break them down until you master them. I'm absolutely rubbish at fighting right now as I've been working out this conquest mode. Now that I know what needs to be done with the map I'll master all of the enemy types I've unlocked so far so that I can go back to conquest and push even further without getting wasted as much.
I've only unlocked a couple of weapons so far however their utility is overwhelming right now. I want to master the basic sword first before moving to something else. You can also unlock the clothing of the enemies and play mix and match dress-up which is quite nice. Currently just traded in my Aztec head feathers for a skull mask, which is a bit more boss.
This guy does a way better job of explaining things:
Currently only on Steam ($19.99) - but heading to all consoles very soon, so I'm told.
Comment