Reinforcement Pack is out now for $4.99.
When I was thinking about it before the price was announced, I decided $5 was my “okay that would be reasonable for the amount of content provided” line (although I probably would have been willing to pay a bit more). So I’m pretty happy with their pricing.
All the chatter in this thread convinced me to pick this game up finally. I had been holding out for a holiday sale discount or similar, but I have a lot of gaming time coming up this weekend and decided to just pay a few bucks extra for immediate gratification.
First impressions are positive but puzzled. This is the slowest RTS I’ve ever played.
Actually that’s not a bad way of describing it…
Awesome! Well, it would be awesome if I wasn’t without internet access for another week. :(
I was struck almost immediately by the feeling that I was playing a RTS game with a really aggressive autopause instead of a 4x game. It’s all about getting a bigger mass of units and overwhelming the enemy base. Pretty fun so far and I’m a 40k fanboy so the setting is delightful.
Not sure this is going to have the legs of a 4x though. It seems like a one-trick pony in terms of figuring out an optimal build order and replaying it, with minor variations based on the resource bonuses around the starting point.
Hey, don’t forget it’s on GOG, too – if you, like me, want it DRM-free:
I feel I’m betraying the strategy gamer creed, but I somewhat enjoyed precisely that easy to get into nature of the game.
In other words, it has legs enough for me.
I think it unlikely I will ever play a game as much as aow3, because few games have the staying power imho, and I am pretty time poor now, and my focus in life is on job etc. Boring stuff in other words.
So a “shallow” game appeals to me.
I might fire up space tyrant.
I gave the DLC a once over, starting up a game with each race to check out the stats and position in the tech tree of each of the new units. Here are my impressions:
Astra Militarum - Tempestus Scions - Tier 4 Infantry with moderate firepower, nothing else special. If you want to focus on IG infantry, this fills a gap but if you are playing the IG properly with cannon, tanks and jets, then it’s fairly irrelevant.
Necrons - Immortals - Tier 2 infantry with relatively high firepower for a tier 2 unit, nothing else special. Since Necron warriors were already either the strongest early game infantry (or tied with Space Marines), this just makes the Necron early game infantry stronger. I would guess this improves the Necrons as a faction in the early to mid game, but haven’t playtested.
Orks - Flash Gitz - Tier 3 infantry with quite high firepower for a tier 3 unit, nothing else special. This will strengthen the Ork position in early game but probably gets subsumed by the Meganobz at tier 5. This unit lacks the Meganobs defense though. It’s basically a ranged, harder version of Boyz. Probably fun, but doesn’t really change the Ork faction.
Space Marines - Land Raider - Tier 10 transport vehicle with solid firepower, moves 4, transports 3. This fills the gap the Space Marines had for a heavy end-game unit, but probably comes way too late in the tech tree to make much difference. Probably fun for the Space Marines to finally have a unit that can slug it out with the other heavy end game units.
Overall, I feel like it’s decent DLC for $5. The units make some small changes to balance, and fill some gaps. A good example of a “more of the same” DLC, correctly priced at $5. It wouldn’t be worth more.
I’m still looking forward to some DLC with entirely new factions and/or game changing units or abilities. I would pay more for that.
It seems like 3 of the 4 DLC units are a potentially better sidegrade to other faction units, but at opportunity cost of research time. For example the Immortals are seemingly better than Warriors, but not hugely so, and as they do give up Rapid Fire for armor which makes them better for ranged combat, but less suited for point blank blocker duty. This might be the call for a given game, but it will also be a tier 2 research slot which means waiting longer for tier 3 or skipping a tier 2. The Land Raider is a beefy unit, but yeah, it comes so late that it may not be relevant.
So…yeah. Nothing game/ faction changing, but some strategic options. That works for me.
So I finally got around to play with the AI patch and new DLC. I was worried that the game now would be too hard, so I played on medium (Space Marines teamed up with Astra Militarum against one faction each of Orks and Necrons) and the result was … a walkover…
I think this is the first time I stopped playing this game before it ended because it was obvious that I would win. I know I stacked the odds in my favour by teaming up, but I can’t remember having a game where everything went so smoothly before.
Might have been the luck of the RNG, started a new game with a bigger map (medium) and that seems to be heading in the same direction…
Some things that jumped out:
Kroot Hounds where almost totally MIA. Seemed to be almost completely replaced by the new DLC unit (Neophyte Hybrids). Unfortunately, the NH are not a serious threat to Space Marines even from the start (in my games atleast)
Enslavers are much stupider, usually slow to attack and then standing their ground. I was able to take a few Artifacts without a proper fight even. Before these were always tense risk/reward decisions. In one game I was faced with this:
Here I managed to take the Artifact, take the encampent & build a Fortress before the Enslaver showed up. It was no match for the fortress…
Take this with a grain of salt as it’s based on 1,5 games on medium. Hope playing on harder difficulties will fix some of these issues…
I played a few games this weekend and definitely felt the difference in the new AI. It can’t be baited nearly as easily, groups effectively, reacts to player unit choices, hides in cover with overwatch, and spreads healing units throughout its formations. It plays much better. “Medium” is the default setting on the right and still gives a “small loyalty bonus” to each AI unless you tinker with them individually in the player options.
Map layout will matter. Yes there seems to be a lot of the new DLC creeps and they are easier than the old ones. I had one game on medium that I blazed through (as SM). I had another game that I just could not win despite repeatedly trying to launch from a mid game save. I was Ork and Ork is admittedly a bit weak late game, but the map was obnoxious. It was a medium map split down horizonally with water or ridges everywhere except 2 spots two hexes wide. This line was about 2/3 leaving my AI friend struggling to do anything in our 1/3. The enemy AIs had lots of room, but didn’t know how to cross the map as the critical hexes had wire weed. I eventually cleared the wire and then all AIs ran through, but my AI just couldn’t get its economy going. The enemy was insane though with an annoying dispersion of terminators, hunters, thunder hawks, heroes, and repair units.
It was a brutal grind. I tried a few times from the point that I found the hole to the other side of the map, but could not win.
I miss the Devils and Robots clogging up the middle. I tend to get DLC creep fodder with really gummed up water/ridge maps now. In my next game, I plan to tinker with settings to try to lower the ridge and water seeding.
The main weaknesses of the AI that I saw is that it struggles with bad maps (that seem generated often now), is a bit too committed leaving itself open to counter attack, and can get stuck running (spreading out) to resources when poor when what it really needs to do is focus some combat units.
Edit: I noticed the DLC creeps were in the open in your screenshot. They are more of a pain in cover due to their ambush gimmick.
Another AI update is in the works and available as a beta.
I’m happy to say that Gladius is probably my GOTY. The AI updates makes the Necron factino borderline OP, but anyway - the game is fantastic.
it’s my GOTY as well. apparently the new race will be the Tyranids. someone found something on steam.
oh cool, great choice! very different from the other races.
Thanks for pushing this one folks. Bought it last night. Yeah this is fun. I dont usually like combat focused 4x’s but this one is just so well balanced in terms of its decision space. I feel like I always have just enough decisions to make and each decision feels “meaty”. Nicely done.
I broke down and got it too. Only played the easy introduction, but it made a really good first impression. I notice some elements from their prior game Pandora First Contact. This will be a really good find if it holds up over multiple play throughs. The AI didn’t do much on easy difficulty (as expected), but if it can play reasonable well at harder difficulties this will be a keeper.
yes, exactly this: it is one of the best balanced games I’ve played for a long while
