Slitherine Announces Gladius - Relics of War

Games
622

Quite possibly. I didn’t get all that far before it was very clear I was going to get crushed. I think I only got to tier IV technology. I had just researched Devilfish armored transports but didn’t get a chance to deploy them.

The drones are fun. But they’re on a 10 turn timer and the gun drones are pretty fragile. I didn’t get much of a chance to play with the shield drone.

I’m sure I’ll do better next game being more familiar with their starting units, and not trying to play them like Space Marines just because they look like they’re wearing cool armor.

623

True, but the Gladius AI tends to focus on the weakest units: you spawn them mainly to increase the chances of survival for your main troops. You can move them into a favourable position and punch the enemy at least once and then you can still use the unit that spawned the drones to attack.

If you’re out in the field with a number of units (which is what you should always do), you can stagger the drones in such a way that the 10-turn cooldown isn’t much of an issue. They’re meant to be expendable, because they only last for a limited number of turns anyway (I think 3 turns).

624

Am I crazy or has the AI in this been substantially improved? I started it up with the new DLC for the first time in about six months, started an SM game to get back in the groove, and got the ever-loving crap kicked out of me by the necrons.

In the past the AI had been, in my experience, perhaps a bit too passive. That no longer appears to be an issue!

On a related note, any good guides to getting an early economy going? I was just starting to research predators when the first annihilation barge showed up.

625

Not sure of this answer, but I believe some games allow you to play against the DLC factions without owning the DLC. I think Total War Warhammer does that? Is that the same with Gladius or do you need the DLC to even play against the DLC factions? Thanks in advance.

626

You need the dlc to play the factions. The only exception is mp, where the host? must have the dlc. I think

627

In single player I think you have to have the DLC to play against the faction. No idea how it works in MP.

628

I’m no armchair general - but I love playing in the Warhammer universe. I lost both the tutorial and my first “easy” game to swarms of Necron units. In my easy game I was playing as the Space Marines. Got to about tech tier 7 and the Necrons were one shotting my main battle tanks (panthers?) with one of their top tier units. Wasn’t fun at all.

Definitely played it slow and was learning along the way. After @vinraith ‘s comment up thread about the AI I’m wondering if it’s me though. May come back to this later.

629

I’ve not messed with the new DLC even though it was given to me by a friend (I’ll get to it), I instead fired up an Astra campaign with 3 other AIs since I’d not completed this quest line (or a couple other races actually) and just thought I’d circle back on this thread and just say:

I really like this game, and interestingly enough unlike Mellified I don’t even care all that much for warhammer.

For me the game design is what pulls me in and has a really strong one more turn feel. I mean I know there’s no diplomacy, but why would there be in warhammer game, this is war. Somehow the simplicity of just building out your city and recruiting armies to go fight really works for me.

630

Agreed. I think it works very well without diplomacy, and moreover I think complicating the design with it would be a mistake.

631

So, uh, wow, the Tau. The AI Tau. Don’t let them climb the tech tree and crank out their economy.

Just played a game as the Astra Militarum on a large map. I set up six AI opponents in 3 alliances of 2 AIs each, with everyone on regular difficulty, including me. Since I’m a solo power against 3 opposing AI alliances, that’s a good level of challenge for me. The 3 alliances opposing are Tau/Space Marines, Orks/Tyrranids and Necron/Chaos (I more or less sorted them by superficial appearance of good/evil).

I start out, get some Sentinels working to help my initial Guardsmen clear the local area of creeps and have terrible luck with the Slaver things. I finally got up to Leman Russ, clear the local area, establish a second city, then tech up to Thunderbolts, roll out with 4 each of Sentinels, Leman Russ and T-Bolts, find the Ork/Tyrranid alliance, fight back and forth with them. While that’s going on, Chaos and the Necrons go down. Killed by other AIs, not sure who. Finally the Ork resistance slackens and I am moving in on them. Just as I am about to wipe out the Orks, the Tyrranids get defeated, and not by me. Which means the Space Marine/Tau alliance have whomped Chaos, the Necrons AND the Tyrranids while I’ve been faffing about with the creeps and the Orks.

A bunch of light fast Space Marine units show up to hit the Orks just as I am wiping out the last Ork city. I manage to kill the Orks and get the experience for the city kill and I’m like, “Haha Space Marines, you and your glass cannon Tau allies are TOO SLOW! Now watch me roll forth!” (I had just teched up to Baneblades.) I start to counter attack the light Space Marine units, figuring by the time their Tau allies show up, I’ll have Baneblades. Unfortunately, Baneblades take a long time to manufacture…

While my first Baneblade is being assembled at the Forge/Hive, the Tau show up to help out their Space Marine buddies. And boy do they show up. I’ve got Leman Russ, T-Bolts and Sentinels which is in most cases good enough for government work, know what I’m sayin’? But these Tau, they don’t just bring their little killable warrior dudes… Oh no, they show up with hover tanks, and dudes in battle suits, including some of those big nasty creatures in big mech suits. AND they bring air support. I don’t know the Tau units well yet but they have some kind of vicious anti-tank hovertank unit that just PWNed my Leman Russ squad. And when my T-Bolts swoop in to counter, the Tau unleash this other kind of hovertank (Skyhammer?) that just swatted my T-Bolts down like flies (never seen that happen - usually a swarm of 4 or more T-Bolts is game over man). I had 4 T-Bolts on contact and was building 4 more, and managed to get a couple more out of the Forge and into battle, but the Tau just swarmed the crap out of my second city, with hovertanks, battle suits and air power out the ass. I haven’t really looked at the Tau air units but they seem very mean.

I retreated all of my units and vectored all of my new production to my second city but it was too late. The Tau were rolling something like a half a dozen each of battlesuits and hover tanks plus another few air attackers, plus supporting infantry, a couple of Commanders, and a bunch of Space Marine groupies. My second city died while my first Baneblade rolled out, and I built another T-Bolt before they rolled into my starting city, but 1 T-Bolt and 1 Baneblade didn’t do much more than slow them. Seriously, those Hammerheads swarmed my Baneblade and took it down in 3 turns.

150 turns in, I was defeated, utterly.

I may have to try playing the Tau again.

632

Thanks for the write up, I’ve been going random AIs and haven’t had them show up yet. They sound nasty.

633

Played this morning without any problem. Now, my cursor drifts to the bottom left of the screen.

634

Got a controller plugged in? Mine does that sometimes.

635

I did as a matter of fact. However, the good old computer reboot took care of it. Next time I will try unplugging the controller before rebooting.

Thank you kindly for your response!

636

Gladius is an excellent game. If I might suggest a few things, it would be to make about 4 or 5 cities as Imperial Guard, and pay attention to making sure your loyalty is positive - the higher the better, at the very least not negative, since that impacts income, time to create units, and research.

Once you have a couple cities, those are the research/resource producing/high end unit places, while you make a couple cities as close as possible to the front lines, with 2 barracks and 2 tank producing building in each, so you can crank out units as soon as possible. Forget task forces, try to have a wave of units 2 or 3 hexes deep that stretches across the North/South axis as you move on your enemies.

Remember, you are the Imperial Guard. CRUSH THEM WITH WAVE UPON WAVE of all your units. More is better. FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

637

Have people found the DLC to be worth the money? They’ve always seemed expensive for what they seemed to be, so I’ve stayed away from them. The DLC is on sale from Slitherine (steam key) and I have a 29% off anniversary coupon, assuming it didn’t expire.

638

I think they’re over priced, so I’d suggest only getting them when on sale. I really like this game so when the DLC have been on sale I’ve gotten them and enjoyed them because the races end up being pretty unique to play (I’ve played most of the SP campaigns and a bunch of coop).

639

'K thanks easytarget

640

Sure thing, I thought btw the last one they released, the Tau, were pretty cool to play. I used them in a coop campaign and really liked the play style. Haven’t done the SP campaign for them yet so don’t know how different or the same it is.

641

I’ve got them all the DLCs and have enjoyed them. As @easytarget says one of the nice things about them is all the races play quite differently.