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Conquest of Elysium 4

pakoito

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Jun 7, 2012
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The roguelike strategy game from the Dominions 4 guys releases a new version on Nov 16.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/403950/

I found this video showcasing what's probably the biggest change from CoE3: a new square-based combat system. On the overworld area there are now different planes too.



While still a quicker game than Dominions, we are raising the complexity of CoE a bit by adding features to interact with the world in more ways and to make the character classes more random from game to game. Below are descriptions of some of the new features in CoE 4. More information will be added later on.

New Map and Climate Generation
The random map generation has been completely remade and produces much more varied and logical maps. There will now be large continuous deserts or forests, or maybe a long mountain stretch. This makes the map both more natural and more fun to play on as it will be easier to predict where the mines or the ancient forests will be. Temperature also plays a large role now. The northern parts of the world will be cold and south will be warm, also mountain areas will be slightly colder than the flat lands. Winter will the make things colder and snow will appear where the temperature allows it. Of course it is possible to influence the temperature, create a second sun on a mountain and that part of the world will never see snow until it is destroyed. Frost giants might lower the temperature around them and create local cold spots.

Planes
The game now has 6 planes instead of only having the Elysium plane. There is for instance an Infernal plane that is the home of the devils and the demons. So if a demonologist manages to summon a demon lord, there will suddenly be a dark citadel without its master in inferno. Banishing a devil will now force it back to inferno instead of slaying it permanently. Although extremely difficult it is now possible to permanently destroy a demon lord by storming inferno and slaying it on that plane.

There is also the plane of Hades. It is a copy of Elysium, but everything is dead and the towns are populated by ghosts and spirits. Every time someone is killed in Elysium there is a chance that he will appear as a spirit in the same location in Hades. Powerful undead that are banished from Elysium will appear on this plane and will not die permanently until they are slain here.

Although there are many planes now you will only rarely have to visit them. But they continue to run in the background and can make certain actions or random events much more exciting than before. E.g. the cultist that opens a portal to inferno now actually does that. The devils from inferno will try to assault Elysium and bring sinners back to inferno. Bringing sinners back will increase their power and enable inferno to get more devils and demons. Unless it is closed Elysium will be in some serious trouble.

New Combat System
The new combat system is more board game like and less abstract than previously. Each combat unit has a counter with information such as hit points left, poison damage and magic items on it. The units will move around on the battlefield and can only strike units that are within range. There is also initiative values that usually corresponds to how long weapon a unit has, so a unit with a spear will get to strike before an opponent with an axe. Units with multiple attacks can have different initiatives for each weapon.

There are also fortifications with gates that have to be broken down before you can storm the fort. Archers manning the walls will get cover bonus depending on how high and well protected the walls are and some castles feature wider walls that can have more archers on them. So while you no longer get a general advantage as defender, you get quite a large advantage if you defend a fortified location. However there are units like spiders that can climb the walls, birds that can fly over the walls and ghosts that can simply walk through them.



Spell casting in combat has also been improved. Some spells can take an extra round to prepare before being cast and a skillful mage might be able to cast several low level spells in a single round. The new combat system has also made it necessary for spells to get different range and area of effects than previously.

Random Rituals
In CoE4 most classes start with a random set of rituals that will make your starting powers different from game to game even if you play the same class. It is possible to gain more rituals during the game, usually by spending enough resources to perform a ritual of mastery. To get a decent amount of randomness many new rituals have been added to the game and many old rituals have been altered. Thanks to this many classes feels and plays quite different from the previous version of the game.

E.g. the druid had previously only summon animal rituals of three different levels. Now the druid might have rituals to transport his armies long distances on faery paths or to summon messenger crows that can spy for him. He could also have rituals that awakens the ancient forests and have them do different things in his favor or a ritual that plants stealthy man eating flowers that will ambush anyone entering the forest. Of course there are rituals to summon beasts to fight for him as usual too, but you might be without these from the start.



Features
Here is a list of some of the features in Conquest of Elysium 4.
  • Random maps with six different planes
  • Roguelike randomness and replayability
  • Over 1000 different monsters
  • Text descriptions for monsters
  • A huge variety of special abilities
  • 20 classes to choose from
  • Over 300 different rituals
  • 60 paths of battle magic
  • 1 to 16 players, network or hotseat
  • Team play with AI or humans
  • Improved AI
  • Fortifications and siege engines (or siege monsters)

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oddajLY.jpg


Basically, combat has been completely revamped. Instead of a featureless background, it now takes place on a square grid whose configuration depends on the terrain. The basic grid is 28x20 squares, but if there are huge doomstacks, it will get dynamically enlarged to accommodate the armies. The armies start several rows apart and they will move towards each other to engage.

Weapons have range, so archers, slingers etc. must get close enough to shoot. Melee fighters must be adjacent to their target.

The combat sequence is as follows:

* Battle fatigue dmage (for very long battles, cannot begin before round 75, but in large battles may begin later)
* Remove clouds (50% chance per cloud)
* Move 1 step (attacker first)
* Fast units move 1 step more (attacker first)
* Check fear
* Choose attacks and set initiative (initiative is straight up the weapon's initiative value, no random additions)
* Perform attacks in order of initiative (units with same IV go in random order)
* Apply persistent effects (burning, poison, decay, bleeding, regen etc)
* Apply battlefield effects (e.g. poison cloud)
* Check for end of battle (if finished, run another 75 rounds to exhaust burning, poison, decay etc)

It's still all under AI control, but the revamp means that you no longer need a minimum of threefold advantage of numbers when attacking, because the defender does not automatically go first and in battle the units actually have to engage. They don't also just randomly wander around the battlefield, but move to engage the enemies actively, usually the closest enemy.

Spellcasters are now also more of a mixed blessing in some instances, because sometimes they are as much a danger to your own troops as the enemy. Sometimes more. Any spell with a beam effect hits everything between caster and target, including your own troops, so you need to pay attention to what spells you memorize. Area effect spells such as terror can also hit your own troops.

Areas of effect are either beam or burst of varying sizes. Things such as a spear attack are AoE burst 1, meaning it hits 1 square (so it can only hit one target), whereas e.g. terror is burst 25, so it's a large starburst model. Other spells may have several one square bursts or hits.

What the changes do is that they reward more aggressive actions and you do not need massive numerical superiority to engage in battles, which makes the entire game much less of a grind than CoE3 was.
 
Last edited:

getter77

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It'll ride an auspicious balance of good/crazy/janky same as all Illwinter wares---all as it should be. Certainly has all signs pointing towards it being markedly different, or at least improved, vs CoE III and earlier.
 

noisenerd

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BattleTech
I like the looks of the new combat system. Speaking of looks, it definitely seems prettier also.
 

Agesilaus

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Loving it, day 1 purchase. I was never enamoured with Dominions, but I enjoyed Conquest of Elysium 2 and 3.
 

Johannes

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CoE 3 was pretty terrible, hoping this will be better. Though I doubt it'll still be unsuitable for multiplayer, but you have Dominions for that.

Also how the fuck is this a "roguelike", it's not even a roguelike-like
 

Agesilaus

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
CoE 3 was pretty terrible, hoping this will be better. Though I doubt it'll still be unsuitable for multiplayer, but you have Dominions for that.

Also how the fuck is this a "roguelike", it's not even a roguelike-like

It's been a while since I played them, but I definitely remember CoE 2 being better than 3. Or, at least, I spent more time on 2.
 

Mortmal

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CoE 3 was pretty terrible, hoping this will be better. Though I doubt it'll still be unsuitable for multiplayer, but you have Dominions for that.

Also how the fuck is this a "roguelike", it's not even a roguelike-like

Its more of a strategy game but our zealous moderation is probably too busy reading fallout 4 threads(and playing to death). So this thread was not moved yet , only a few grognards still read this main forum and know of this game existence.
Hyped as fuck too, despite COE3 being a dumbed down Dominion version.
 

udm

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Make the Codex Great Again!
jk.illwinter said:
It will be steam only for starters. We'd like to have it on GoG too if they let us, but that's for later, we have to finish the game and get it ready on steam first.

Hopefully.... (though I already own Dom 3 and 4 on Steam)
 

Agesilaus

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Yeah, let's start a new game! Oh yeah, what's in the tile next to my castle?

ikQVL7m.jpg


...

Also LOL at whoever moved this to GRPGD. "Roguelike" indeed.

What loot did it drop when you killed it
 

mondblut

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Meh. I always wanted to like CoE, but the series are nothing but bite-sized, dumbed down Dominions. Why settle for it when you can play the real thing?
 

Agesilaus

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Also, who is the ancient greek leader in this game? I found the Romans (Senator), but can't find the Hellenes.
 

Grimwulf

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Why settle for it when you can play the real thing?

It's a little bit more fun in sp mode. Dominions is pure mp experience - it simply doesn't work too well when playing with AI. In CoE it's more about fighting random than fighting your opponents.

Also, a man gotta entertain himself somehow while waiting for new turns in Dominions.
 

mondblut

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It's a little bit more fun in sp mode. Dominions is pure mp experience - it simply doesn't work too well when playing with AI. In CoE it's more about fighting random than fighting your opponents.

Dunno, I enjoy Dominions in sp. And I hate fighting random. Random is ought to fight at my side. :obviously:

Also, a man gotta entertain himself somehow while waiting for new turns in Dominions.

True enough, those 1500 province 90 nation single-age turns take up to 20 minutes to resolve :smug:
 

Grimwulf

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Ok, then my last argument is writing. It's literally worth playing just for the sake of cool stories.

qixfbcjlck.jpg


Maybe not worth 20 euros, but eh. Guess I'm sort of an Illwinter fanboy.
 

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