Not really. It’s never been that been that large a genre, and there was a long period where there were basically no games. We’re probably living in its golden age right now.
(That being said, I remember Sword of Aragon as being as being amazing at the time. Mind you, it was 1989, so Master of Magic … and for that matter Civilization … were still in the future.)
Maybe the solution is Dominions’ SP cousin, the sorely overlooked Conquest of Elysium 3?
And its only ten bucks.
Yes, CoE3 would certainly fit the bill. Tom described it as a sort of roguelike and he wrote quite a few pieces on it at the time. It does not involve building as such (other than troops, of course), but it does involve conquest. Battles are automated and you only control what you bring, but not how they fight. It has 17 different classes to play across five or six different eras, which affect the environment (how much and what type of structures there are etc).
You can buy it from both Desura and Steam. If you buy from Desura, you can also redeem the key on Steam, but not vice versa.
Even as a single player game, I prefer Dominions to CoE3, the way the AI plays and the way conquest is designed in CoE3 (taking square tiles one by one) means is pretty frustrating to play CoE3, having to play the “I tag this square, he tags my squares, he repeat 50 times” meta-game. And the AI is even worse than in Dominions, he would have big fat stacks and won’t decide to attack with them.
It may be a stretch to include it, but how about King of Dragon Pass?
I loved Sword of Aragorn. If I remember correctly the copy protection used the printed map for answers that had to be typed in.
Yeah, it was the icons for the different towns. You still needed to manual to get the prompted for word corresponding to the city icon.
Mount and blade with Prophecy of Pendor or Native Expansion mod installed, is excellent game, that covers all from individual fighting, to commanding armies and eventually kingdoms…its got EVERYTHING.
I agree completely - its possibly the best kingdom simulation in a game yet.
Worlds of Magic seems to be shaping up quite well. Not sure when it’s coming out of early access.
The best fantasy empire/conquest game was by far Kingdom Conquest 2, published by sega on mobile (android/ios) in 2013.
It was alas discontinued in 2017 and its planned sequel KC dark empire was never released - and anyway it seemed to be heading quite far from many of the player base expectations.
KC2 was a MMO conquest game in a huge 1000x1000 grid world, with a strategic richness that would put good old HoMM3 to shame, and a steep learning curve about combat mechanics that you ajd to mostly figure out by yourself with your guildmates. It was alas having many elements of gacha on the commercial aspect (and with outrageous costs, sega is greedy), but wasn’t nearly as pay to win as most other titles of this genre (no accelerated building nor ressources for cash, a trade system between players with the ingame currency allowing to get any monster card for free, etc…).
. . . taking advantage of this thread-necro to add another, very recently released and exclusive to Nintendo Switch which, dang it, has compelled me to buy a Switch. This is a partial remake / partial sequel, with few changes, of a cult PSX classic from about 20 years ago
That. Looks. AMAZING. I had never heard of it, but the trailer looks great - and I see there is a demo. Dammit. I wish I’d known about this back in June when it dropped, for now I’ll put it in my DekuDeals wishlist and revisit when I have some more gaming time and resources. Thanks for this.
That does look good, but the Nintendolife review calls it a sequel, not a remake, and says it has a different setting.
Deity Empires should be added to the list of great fantasy empire/conquest games.
In 20 years . . . I am yet to encounter another game that offered a similar recipe. You have your hero units and they have some personality, but every single monster you can summon can develop into other monsters and often with branching chains. Part of the ‘fun’ is curating your own preferred mix of squads through combinations of heroes and units and developing them within the tactical battles.
The overland strategy layer is very much like Risk. I cannot comment much on AI ability but there is a wonderful mechanic. Anything you choose to attack with within a turn, you cannot also defend with. So you might have a great stack to launch an attack with, but given that many or most fortifications connect to two or more others, throwing everything into an attack will leave you completely open. Should you delay? Dilute your attack? Cool choices.
Yeah, I think this is right. It is not a straight remake with enhancements. It is close enough that I have had to learn almost nothing to begin playing but there are at least story and character differences. Have adjusted original post!