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Post by rewindbutton on May 13, 2020 15:16:15 GMT
Hi everyone! Couldn't find a thread about this game so I made one. Hope you approve. Warhammer 40k Gladius Relics of War was the game that kept me sane during sickness and quarantine in march. Thought I'd share it with you in form of a short review. Developer: Proxy Studios Platform: PC, Windows 10 Universe: Warhammer 40k (duh!) Genre: Turn based, Base building, Tactical combat Playable Factions (atm): Space Marines, Astra Militarum, Chaos Space Marines*, Necrons, Orks, Tyranids*, Tau* *= DLC faction
I've never been much of a WH40k fan (heresy, I know), but I was impressed by this game. Combat is turn based on a hex map and it emulates table top games in a good way, I think. I am very much into strategy games though, and this game managed to beat me several times until I got the grasp of it. Even when you start getting good at it you'll have to weigh your options and be prepared to lose units in your way to victory. Units get xp and level up and become tougher, so losing a level 10 unit hurts your overall performance. You can build hero units and customise them at a trading post for better survivability and damage. Pros: immersive gameplay, stable build, fairly competent AI Cons: maps could be more diverse, unit chatter should be voice acted, minor balance issues Over all: solid 8/10 Available on Steam. (not affiliated in any way)
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Post by rewindbutton on May 17, 2020 13:39:45 GMT
Hi again!
I realise this is a niche genre for a niche audience, but still, I was hoping for some conversation. Anyway, there is a Complete Edition out, but at a 70 bucks it feels a bit pricey. I recommend trying the base game first and then picking and choosing DLC factions according to your liking. Yes, you'll end up paying more if you buy all the factions though (like I did). There are plenty of let's plays in Youtube, but IMHO they don't quite conway the game properly. Many use small maps with many enemies, whereas I think it's best with a large map and a few enemies. That way the AI can balloon and build large armies, which leads to epic showdowns where the outcome often hangs in a balance. That's about it. Stay safe and cheers!
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Post by rewindbutton on Jun 2, 2020 7:44:06 GMT
New Assault Pack DLC ($4) is out along with the 1.6.0 update and the 1.6.1 open beta. Good times! Was afraid the Complete Edition would mean end of development. Assault Pack brings new units for each faction. Bit of a milking, I know, but I'm ok with it. Sadly I have nowhere near enough time to try it out. Will keep you posted, even if it's a solitary job, for I know no fear.
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Post by rewindbutton on Jun 15, 2020 8:16:48 GMT
A little update on the Assault Pack:
Did a PT as Necrons, Astra Militarum and Space Marines. Not too impressed by the DLC, but the 1.6.0 update is a must. The problem with the DLC is, that it adds flavour, but doesn't do any favours otherwise. Flayed Ones cost the same as Necron Warriors to build, and the Razorback is too weak to matter. The Chimera adds much needed early game armor for the Guard, but is quickly rendered obsolete.
The update fixes balance issues and changes how the map is generated, which was IMHO a great improvement. Would give now 8,5 of 10.
The base game is on a -65% sale in GOG. A much better price in case you're interested.
Be safe and Cheers!
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Post by rewindbutton on Jun 25, 2020 7:42:54 GMT
A Couple observations down the road:
When you are done trying different factions, map sizes and difficulties, there's still a couple more things to try before shelving the game. One vs. one is always nice, although luck plays a role, as you never know how the RNG treated your starting spot. This was improved in the latest patch though.
An another one is a infantry only -challenge. This is particularly suited for Necrons and Astra Militarum, who are supposed to have billions of troops (this varies by source ofc.).
And you can combine these two, for an... interesting game. I tried playing Necrons vs. Orks, and got roflstomped three times in a row. I then switched to AM, and suddenly had a lot easier time. Definetely worth a try, but be warned that the game takes longer to finish, as you advance very slowly.
Again, Cheers!
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Post by rewindbutton on Jul 24, 2020 9:24:02 GMT
More updates arrived in july, and the game is now even more balanced. Infantry Only got more difficult as AM, since Bring it Down! affects now only Guardsmen, and no longer Heavy Weapons Squads. Initially I bought the Tau DLC just to add more enemies into the game. Not a fan of the Tau, but I do like a proper Battle Royale. Decided to give the Tau a go though, and got one thing to say: Stormsurge. While the Tau remain your generic scifi aliens as a faction, I immediately fell in love with the KV128 Stormsurge. What a beast! Suddenly the Gorkanauts and Obelisks werent such a threat anymore. It's almost game breakingly good, especially if you upgrade it with Vectored Retro-Thrusters, giving it +1 moves. Massive damage per turn and 4 movement, gotta love it.
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Warning Points: 1
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January 2017
vonuber
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by vonuber on Jul 26, 2020 17:46:01 GMT
Does it have co-op multiplayer?
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Post by rewindbutton on Jul 26, 2020 19:22:42 GMT
Does it have co-op multiplayer? It sure does. Never tried multiplayer, but it was designed for team play.
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Post by rewindbutton on Aug 18, 2020 11:48:54 GMT
Not the best Lets Play, but he talks about multiplayer (which I have no intention of trying) in the beginning:
Edit: He's using the latest version and all the DLCs.
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Aug 17, 2016 14:31:53 GMT
August 2016
vortex13
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, KOTOR, Jade Empire
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Post by Vortex13 on Oct 13, 2020 13:52:23 GMT
I recently discovered that this game has added a steam workshop for mods and it has breathed a whole new life into this title for me.
With just a simple rescaling mod and voice mod I would have been content, but they also have a mod that adds the Eldar, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Genestealer Cult factions; each complete with their own unique units, intro videos, and campaigns.
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Post by rewindbutton on Oct 22, 2020 6:22:49 GMT
I recently discovered that this game has added a steam workshop for mods and it has breathed a whole new life into this title for me. With just a simple rescaling mod and voice mod I would have been content, but they also have a mod that adds the Eldar, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Genestealer Cult factions; each complete with their own unique units, intro videos, and campaigns.
I haven't launched the game for a while now, so hadn't noticed. This is great news, much obliged!
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Post by rewindbutton on Oct 25, 2020 12:11:03 GMT
The game has reached version 1.6.4 and received even more polish. It adheres now more to the TT game 7th edition rules. I'd be content if this was the final version, especially since there's now proper mod support ( folder for mods, so you don't have to mod the base game ). Haven't tried the mods, but I intent to. Might do a mod of my own, but we'll see. I did tweak it early on, but updates rendered the mod useless, as they should have of course.
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Post by rewindbutton on Nov 24, 2020 13:20:01 GMT
There's a new DLC, Craftworld Aeldari. Haven't had time to test it out, but hopefully will soon. The Eldar are the glass cannons of WH40k, so there will be some interesting battles ahead. And apprently they can only build cities on top of webways. Interested to see how that works. Will keep you posted.
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Post by rewindbutton on Nov 29, 2020 17:40:29 GMT
So I went and bought the DLC despite the damn inflated price. Seriously, $12,50? The Complete Edition is now $50... Anyway, the current version is 1.7.2 and it nerfs the Eldar somewhat, but probably not enough. I only managed two PTs so far, so take this with a grain of salt. So, the Eldar are super ancient and super powerful. They are supposed to be glass cannons, but I found they are all steel, as only the early infantry is weak. To counter their super awesomeness the Eldar cities grow very slowly. But there is a workaround, and it makes the game a cakewalk. Eldar cities must be built on top of webways, which limits your options, but not much. Problem is, if you have the resources you can build new cities immediately. That's your exploit right there: you can and should build five cities as fast as possible. They may grow slow, but you have a massive head start compared to the other races. In addition, your research goes through the roof. In my first Eldar game I pawned the AI; I was rocking Wraithknights and Scorpios while the AI had hardly any heavy units. So rinse and repeat. This time I gave the Necrons a serious boost; my other opponents were Chaos Space Marines, Tyranids and Orks. And this time I didn't take it so seriously, as I already knew what I was doing. Result? Pretty much the same. The Necrons had a ton of units, but they were far behind in the research tree and couldn't counter my heavy units. My Scorpio one-shotted their only Monolith. Conclusion, I can't recommend the DLC as it is now. It adds new content, but is in need of serious balancing. As always, will keep you posted.
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Post by rewindbutton on Dec 14, 2020 10:48:55 GMT
I did more testing, 5 PTs altogether (seriously, I don’t know where I found the time to do that ). Two games as Space Marines, one as Necrons and two as the Eldar. Now I’m convinced that the Eldar DLC wasn’t very well thought of, or at least the single player game wasn’t. First game as the Eldar, my opposition was Orks, Necrons and teamed up Space Marines with the Guard. All were souped up to the max. I was sure that the Imperial forces would run me over, but no. I was so far ahead in the tech tree that it was I who overran everyone. Oh well. Second game, same setup. This time my starting location gave me trouble in the form of local wildlife and I advanced slowly. Tech-wise I was on a par with the others, but nothing really can stop Wraithknights coupled with Scorpios. I mean the Orks had 8 Gorkanauts and the Necrons 4 Obelisks and they went down like punks. Time to switch sides. I played Space Marines and the opposition was Orks, Tyranids, Necrons and the Eldar. As the RNG would have it, the Eldar started right next to me. Early game fighting ensued, but there wasn’t much of a competition, as you can imagine, in the battle between Glass cannons and Real Cannons. On to the next. Fourth game, same setup as before. I didn’t see much, but according to statistics The Eldar did okay. They didn’t build heavy units though. I’m guessing they couldn’t get cities built fast enough and were overran by Tyranids. Fifth game, switched to Necrons. Necrons are one of my favourites, so I had to give everyone else a big boost, namely the Orks, Tyranids, Chaos and the Eldar. This was the best Eldar performance I’ve seen so far. They actually had Wraithknights, but no Scorpios. I ran into their army with my Monoliths and Obelisks; a pitched battle followed, where I was careful not to lose any units. In the end they fled, but my Doom Scythes gave chase and finally mowed the Wraithknights down. I lost some Doom Scythes but they lost an army, so it was over. Was it fun and did I get my money’s worth? Most definitely. Would I recommend it now? It depends. The DLC is wildly off balance and the AI is in serious trouble as the Eldar. It doesn’t have the ability to protect and secure the gates it needs for future cities. The gates are fragile and you have to time your cities pretty perfectly; claim a gate too early, and it is quickly destroyed. For a human player this is obvious, as is the fact that you can offset the slow growth rate by building cities as fast as possible. The resource gathering to achieve this is a breeze, since your early game infantry only needs food for their upkeep. However, since it is possible to tweak difficulty individually for each faction, there is a chance that an artificial balance at least could be found. And guess who is already itching to try to find it...
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Post by rewindbutton on Dec 15, 2020 17:55:35 GMT
Quick update: Instead of trying to find a balance by adjusting the game settings, I wrote a mod that changed the Eldar's starting units to Howling Banshees. And bingo! The very first game worked as intended. The Eldar wiped the table clean swiftly and efficiently, including my Space Marines. Their research was sky high and they had a massive military. Now to balance that... Will keep you posted.
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Post by rewindbutton on Dec 16, 2020 16:51:18 GMT
[edit: see below!]
Well this is embarrassing. Apparently my mod didn't work and I just got lucky. The starting units seem to be hard coded, since I can't find a file that would work. The obvious line in <startingUnits> <unit type="Eldar/Guardian" count="2"/> </startingUnits>did nothing. I'll see if I can think of a workaround.
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Post by rewindbutton on Dec 16, 2020 18:41:56 GMT
Aaand to make this doubly embarrassing, now it works. Must have glitched somehow, because now the very same line works and the starting units really are Howling Banshees: <startingUnits> <unit type="Eldar/HowlingBanshee" count="2"/> </startingUnits>Super weird and makes my testing really interesting.
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Post by rewindbutton on Dec 17, 2020 13:41:19 GMT
So, the latest version is 1.7.3 which addresses most of the issues I have been raving about. If only they had waited for a month before launching the DLC, right? Right, I guess most of us know how these things work, so... I'm happy for the update; it nerfs Wraithknights and there is a new tech for building cities, so rapid city deployment is out. That said, I'm going to take a break from this thread, it's only a week until Christmas and there's lots to do. Happy Holidays and Happy Warhammering everyone! Cheers!
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Post by rewindbutton on Jan 12, 2021 17:22:19 GMT
I did more testing with the current version 1.7.3. There is a new version in the works, but it’s pretty small and mostly fixes bugs, so balance wise the results should be valid for some time. I’ve had a feeling that the Eldar DLC broke the AI somehow, and I’m now fairly sure about it. The game has felt too easy, even when boosting the AI factions. The reason for this seems, sadly, to be the webways. The AI spends too many turns attacking the webways, when it should be fighting the wildlife and building cities. I modded the webways to be more fragile, and it seems to help, but more testing is needed. In case you are interested, it’s the line in the WebWayGate file in the data/world/units/eldar –folder: <hitpointsMax base="22.0"/>I changed the value from 32 to 22. I don’t think it did enough, so I’ll have to make it even weaker. Oh well, more testing…
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Post by rewindbutton on Feb 2, 2021 12:35:54 GMT
It took a while, but think I finally got to the bottom of the screwy balance issues. The Eldar DLC introduced two new neutral things to shoot at, the webwaygates and the Umbras, and apparently this was a bit too much for the AI to handle. Given the choice to either shoot at a monstrous enemy unit or at a harmless inanimate webwaygate, the AI will always choose the gate. Add the Umbras, flying, non-melee attackable dangerous monsters and you have a problem. What I did was, I modded the hitpoints of webwaygates from 32 to 16. Then in the advanced settings I set the amount of wildlife to low and the amount of gates to very low. This would seem to get the best results. It's hardly ideal, but it will bring the AI to it's pre-Eldar competency. Needless to say, if one of your factions is the Eldar, you may wan't to play with the settings to be able to build more cities.
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Post by rewindbutton on Feb 19, 2021 17:47:34 GMT
I've been tin kering with the game, and have something worthwhile to show you, just in case there is someone still playing it. No really, is anyone there?
The Eldar DLC introduced a new trait: Unique. It's purpose is to limit the number of Avatars of Khaine to one:
<trait> <modifiers> <modifier> <effects> <typeLimit add="1"/> </effects> </modifier> </modifiers> </trait>
Now, the value <typelimit> can take any value, so this trait can be used to limit the numbers of all units. I copied the trait and made six more traits with values from one to six. This is trait BuildLimitFive:
<trait> <modifiers> <modifier> <effects> <typeLimit add="5"/> </effects> </modifier> </modifiers> </trait>
That was done just to make the modding of all factions easier. After all six traits were done I added the traits to units that I thought needed limiting. For Eldar Scorpions I added:
<trait name="BuildLimitTwo"/>
This works pretty nicely, and makes the game more difficult, because you can't just spam units at will. Sure, you can easily build replacements, but that, and hurrying to battle takes time. Anyway, I thought I'd share that with anyone reading this thread.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
Clearance Level Ultra
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: ALoneGretchin
Posts: 2,811 Likes: 7,042
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Agent 46
177
0
Sept 20, 2024 20:41:34 GMT
7,042
Gileadan
Clearance Level Ultra
2,811
August 2016
gileadan
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
ALoneGretchin
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Post by Gileadan on Feb 21, 2021 7:57:19 GMT
I picked up Gladius because it was on sale on GOG and because I'm a 40k fan. I also got most of the DLC, except for Tau and Eldar (because this thread scared me). So far I'm not good at it at all, but I'm having fun. I played through the introduction and now started a game as Astra Militarum and those frakking enslavers already screwed me over. But on the bright side, the Commissar occasionally says "What would Cain do...", so there's that...
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Post by rewindbutton on Feb 21, 2021 11:47:21 GMT
Excellent, GOG sales are the best. It was -65% off, I believe?. And I think you chose well; I could live without the Tau, and the game peaked before the Eldar DLC. And you can always pick those up later. There is a slight learning curve, but it's not that bad. My Space Marines succumbed to the enslavers too. Initially I lost two, then sent reinforcements only to see them turn grey as well. The game has a lot going for it, and a lot of the balance issues can be saved by adjusting the individual difficulty sliders. For example, the AI Necrons seem to be underachievers for some reason, so you may wanna set them a notch higher than the rest. But only after you start to get the hang of it. I'm a WH40k noob, so lot of the references go over my head, I'm afraid. My first foray in to the universe was WH40k Mechanicus two years ago. So bear with me.
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Gileadan
N5
Agent 46
Clearance Level Ultra
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: ALoneGretchin
Posts: 2,811 Likes: 7,042
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Agent 46
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Sept 20, 2024 20:41:34 GMT
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Gileadan
Clearance Level Ultra
2,811
August 2016
gileadan
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
ALoneGretchin
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Post by Gileadan on Feb 21, 2021 12:31:00 GMT
I ended up burying the enslavers (and everything next to them) under a few Earthshaker volleys, which was a satisfying solution to the problem.
It's been ages that I played a game that required me to pay attention to so many factors and numbers, so I'm taking it a bit slow and learn as I go. I'm quite pleasantly surprised by the game's quality given how tiny the dev studio is.
The "What would Cain do..." line refers to the Ciaphas Cain series of novels. Unusually humorous for a 40k story, they are the memoirs of Commissar Ciaphas Cain, who is revered as a hero throughout the Imperium but is actually quite a coward who gained his hero status by accident and desperately scrambles to maintain this reputation (because he figures it will protect him from being shot in the back by his own troops, and the accommodations are also quite nice) without getting killed in the process.
Mechanicus is a little gem I quite enjoyed, plus it's the only game about the "cogboys" as Commissar Cain would say that I'm aware of.
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