I thought I would start a Thread on Legion Wars, since the game has picked up a bit of steam. Since its on sale on Steam for 4.99 (9.97 if you pick up the DLCs).
The Graphics are a bit retro and anime, but the game is surprisingly deep (and the campaigns are hard).
I’ve only really played the Undead, the Dwarfs, and the Humans, but I’ve been really invested in the Hero Challenges.
@Lykurgos wrote up a far better description of it, so I’ll let him add more details.
Rather than summoning someone else or expecting us to read about it on another site, can you maybe tell us what you like about Legion War, @legowarrior? How is it surprisingly deep? What are the hero challenges you mentioned?
I’m happy to see a thread for it, because as someone who has 0.4 hours played, I don’t remember a minute of this thing. Maybe you could talk a bit about why you started a thread for it? I’m always happy to be talked into a new 4X!
Mostly because I find my ability to put my thoughts into words and expressing myself is middling at the best of times, and down right poor when I am tired or stressed about other things.
Also, partly because people praised their description on the Steam Summer Sale. Who am I to get in the way of what the people want?
But, I will try my best to describe some of the things I enjoyed.
The game starts out with 4 (6) factions, each with 4 heroes, 8 units, and 8 spells. The factions share a lot in common, but each has their own traits.
Undead poison troops, and have units that can summon skeletons.
Dwarfs get extra boosts from Equipment and can summon buildings instead of cast spells.
Wild has the ability to boost their troops with Ambush (if they didn’t attack) and ancestor power (if a hero killed a unit nearby).
Elves also have poison, and heavy into archers.
Mechanical is tough, and can self repair.
And so on.
But the units and heroes only scratches the surfaces. You can boost Units by unlocking upgrades for a particular unit. Usually 6 levels of unlocks, with 3 options each. The unlocks apply to all units of that type, so specialization is beneficial.
The unlocks are usually smallerish, but some are game defining.
Vampires have a ranged attack… the first unlock can make it more powerful… or it can turn them into a Melee unit.
Skeleton warriors can be made even cheaper, or you can make the stronger.
By the way, instead of upgrades, you can equip items on the units but if you do, the cost of the units go up. Find a magic Bow that increases range? Sure, give it to your heroes. Or, give it to your Elven Archers. Now, you can upgrade each elven archer to have that bow.
Finally, Techs. Techs are universal, and come in three flavors in 3 ranks.
Magic - spells cheaper and/more powerful
Empire - upgrades to your castles - Undead can unlock free Barracks, which increase their population cap. And then their barracks can generate gold with another tech.
And units. Like unit upgrades, but universal.
In the midst of all this, you can pick up merc camps, which have their one 4 heroes and dozen units, sea castles, with 2 heroes and a dozen units, elemental sites that can summon and merge elementals, and dragon lairs.
Anyway, I think that covers what you can do in the game.
As I said, I mostly play the challenge game, which does away with all the unit building in favor of just getting heroes and leveling them up.
But I enjoyed the fact that the factions play differently. The heroes has different roles in the faction. And even an individual faction can be tailored while playing the game to your needs.
Here’s a good QT3 comment on it:
I wouldn’t call the art style “retro anime” (which would be rad as hell) so much as “throwaway predatory free to play mobile trash,” which is part of what makes it a tough sell. It is a mobile game, although sadly no longer updated on Android (but seems to be on iOS).
I am SUMMONED!
So, making an initial submission more or less the same as a review I left within Steam. This one, I strongly recommend for fans of challenging turn-based tactics AND strategy (this has a lot of both) with one major caveat. Specifically recommended if you have played and enjoyed, for examples: Battle for Wesnoth, Panzer General, Fantasy General, Order of Battle, Warlock, Fall from Heaven Civ mod, Conquered Kingdoms (yes, the QQP classic!), Historyline, Battle Isle, also Advance Wars-a-likes.
Having played all of those, this one . . . would be my top pick for breadth and depth of tactical and strategic options, and they work. This is well designed, mostly.
The good parts are:
Within one campaign scenario, I experienced the closest I ever have in a tactical game to a WWI trenches style attrition war, needing to carefully swap in and out units to the front line, and organise tanks to the front, archers back, artillery type units at the rear.
Huge variety of factions / units / tactics / maps, and extensive campaigns, if you enjoy the core gameplay loops, there are 100s of hours here. There are five campaigns (or more maybe, with DLC) and a really strong scenario generator, similar to what you may experience in the likes of Age of Wonders, Warlock, Heroes of Might and Magic etc.
RPG-like unit progression is done very well, with Hero characters having an expansive hexagonal development tree but even regular units having development options, and you can, if you like to, curate that ‘super’ team and use that as the focus for your offensives.
The terrain matters. Most terrains give some kind of buff or debuff, and some are impassable to non-flying units, and the net sum is that arranging choke-points and tactical withdrawals and defence is a huge part of the game, possibly far more so, again, than many more serious, military style game comparators.
This game just does tactics, and to some extent, strategy, and to some extent, since you are managing various resources, logistics!
~ What kind of force composition you create, through buildings and unit procurement
~ How you manage fighting on multiple-fronts, for example, going defensive of some, and offensive on others
~ What kind of hero units you will use, and how you will develop them
~ How you will support your hero units with regular units
And many more . . .
The BIG caution is that some of the campaign scenarios are brutally challenging. The Steam discussion forums are worth visiting to see a bit of chatter about this. I personally enjoyed the enormous challenge of an earlier campaign scenario that generates a lot of dislike, but despite the bright and colourful fantasy graphics, this is a serious beast of a tactical challenge.
One minor caution is that the campaign scenarios alternate between more or less conventional maps where you use a full range of economic / magic development and progression options, as per a regular scenario, and others where you are given a strictly fixed roster of units and a specific objective to achieve, like a tactical retreat where you preserve key units. This latter type strips away the strategic layer but can be just as challenging, requiring detailed management to succeed.
Adding to the wall of text above, that this almost feels like it is a fantasy “grand strategy” scale game. On the biggest maps, the experience is something akin to playing an XXL Heroes of Might and Magic (early games) or Age of Wonders II, but with the tactical action being a lot more like WWI style front-lines, backlines and trenches, played out on the hex map, rather than in separate off-map combat instances.
As if I needed one more game to buy. Sigh. Thanks, I guess! :D
Yeah, based on Big L’s massive enthusiasm I just grabbed it and both DLCs from the sale. As if I needed another game! xD
One thing that’s not super clear: how good is the sandbox mode? You’ve waxed poetic about the scenarios; have you sandboxed at all? It does have one, right?
I have mainly played the sandbox mode and I quite like it. It is somewhat standard setup. You start with one city and have to conquer all the other cities in the (procedurally generated) world. So, a true 4X game.
The procedural generated map system is very good!
It’s good. Basically, it has a really Age of Wonders feel to it. Just a note of caution. Water does slow the game down and large maps are really large. Tech progression costs more on large maps, and you have a hard cap of 300 points of units.
The one thing I didn’t do too much was hunt the random monsters running around. Most are passive until you attack them, but those are high powered dragons and the like. I just ignored them in preference to taking neutral sites or crushing the enemy.
Damn, must have been the tail end of the sale because it’s over and I missed it! On the wishlist for next time it goes.
I think the last time I looked at this it wasn’t quite clear which of the iOS versions was the correct one, or whether either of them were being updated. Has anyone played it on an iPad?
Regarding the procedurally generated maps / custom games . . . yeah, these are probably the ‘peak experience’, and the engine to generate them feels both robust and with plenty of settings you can easily adjust.
On adjustments, let me offer a warning! Within custom games, a couple features that cause some dismay are the ‘God’ and ‘Dragon’ type units that can show up and overwhelm you completely. These are both optional features however, and you can disable them within the Advanced Settings when starting a new game.
There are ways of dealing with those units, but until you have some games worth of experience, I reckon they are better switched off.
Also, loving the humor . . . . if you read the difficulty settings, they go like this:
The art style and interface means that it works remarkably well on Steam Deck too!
Aren’t those monsters and gods pretty passive during the game? They pretty much ignore me and my opponent, even as they fly through the middle of a battle.
I am ignorant of their mechanics. Yes, they may not interfere with you, but they also might. Perhaps they will only attack if attacked first, intentionally or by accident, I am unsure. If you do somehow trigger them to go aggressive though, it is utterly overwhelming, meaning they can one shot-kill entire groups of your units. Hence you have to be very careful around them.
The version on Steam is called [Chinese characters]Legion War, but the graphic says “Legion War: Hero Age,” which the last time I checked is the name of the iOS app that had the same version number as the steam app. The Android app has apparently been removed from the Play store entirely, which is just as well since it seems to have been abandoned.
I have not bought or played either, but heads up there are two, rather than one, Legion War Android Apps.
Legion War - Hero Age is the more recent game, and I think similar or even identical to the PC game, albeit it looks like it lacks the updates for the PC game since late 2020
Legion War - Tactic & Strategy is an older game, and dissimilar
Basically, avoid anything not on steam!
