Eador. Genesis - an old-school indie TBS/RPG

[MrFlibble 31]

This December Eador. Genesis, a remarkable Russian* indie fantasy turn-based strategy/role-playing game, had been finally translated into English (the game was initially released in 2009) and is available from GOG.com.

 

Eador is made in a distinct old-school style and adheres to the best in the turn-based strategy and role-playing game traditions, improving on the ideas from such classic titles as Warlords, Master of Magic, Dominions, Age of Wonders and Heroes of Might and Magic, as well as Sid Meier's Civilization and Master of Orion. Despite its immediately familiar visuals, the game is neither a straightforward clone nor a simple mixture of any of those, but an independent, unique game, envisioned and designed by its author and project leader, Alexey Bokulev.

 

What makes Eador stand out is the complexity of the game world: it is meticulously thought out to the tiniest detail, and everything is important. The depth of the world isn't just for show, as it gives players a great degree of freedom in their actions, producing near-infinite variety of playing situations and possible solutions. Players are encouraged to develop their own style and ways of playing as they build up their armies, run the economy and manage politics, make alliances and acquire new technologies. There is absolutely no railroading on the part of the game whatsoever. Want to maintain a powerful army comprising entirely of ranged units? You can do that. Want to become a powerful necromancer? Sure thing. You wish to become a goody-good lawful leader who is allied with Elves or Dryads? That is also possible.

 

In Eador, it's easy to grasp the basics but you'll spend quite some time learning the intricacies of the game, some of which are not immediately obvious. Thankfully the game has a very friendly and extensive tutorial that allows to learn playing essentials without having to suffer from naturally occurring beginner's mistakes.

 

Combat is quite an important aspect in Eador but it's not the only thing that matters. You'll also need to manage your provinces, expand your influence by means of diplomacy or good reputation, and deal with a huge variety of unique events that occur in your kingdom from time to time. Every decision matters as it affects the player's reputation and moral alignment.

 

The mainstay of gameplay are heroes, who can be guided to become whatever a player desires. There are four basic classes (Warrior, Ranger, Commander and Mage), each with lots of unique skills and abilities, and the ability to multi-class once they had levelled up enough times, opening numerous paths of development. Each class serves its own purpose - thus a Ranger, for example, excels at diplomacy and province exploration, while a Commander can field the most number of units in his party at any time. Regular units also level up and can gain additional abilities as they grow in skill. Not all units and technologies are available from the start, as there is no fixed tech tree; some units can only be acquired by making alliances or visiting special locations.

 

Eador has too many features to be listed in their entirety without the list becoming an expansive strategy guide for the game. Much fun is in discovering them on your own. There's a Russian language demo available from the official site (I don't know if there is an English demo). There is also a screenshot gallery.

 

* Alexey Bokulev lives in Ukraine but the original release of the game is in Russian and Russian is his native language.

[PurpleGaga27 40]

So much for a $5.99 price tag. I thought this indie game is free.

[MrFlibble 31]

So much for a $5.99 price tag.

Wut? It's an excellent in-depth game you can play for hours and hours and still discover something new, with a great replay value, and you say "so much for $5.99"? O_o

 

On another note, speaking of free stuff, have you played C-evo? I'm asking because that's another game of comparable complexity, and it's free.

[Luk3us 63]

Looks a bit like Civilization with a fantasy twist.

 

[MrFlibble 31]

Civilization was certainly one of the inspirations for this title.

 

The twist here is that there's a global map (astral plane) where you can pick "world shards" to conquer. Each shard contains certain technologies (designs for structures you can build in your home castle) which, once acquired in one of the random encounters, are permanently added to our tech tree. You can preview the technologies and other bonuses you may get from a shard before conquering it, thus planning your tech development in advance.

 

Once on a shard, you can develop your heroes and armies in any way you wish (e.g. by hiring troops of good or evil alignment), and also make alliances with non-human races that happen to populate the shard (if any). Naturally possible alliances strictly depend on your alignment (e.g. you can't ally with elves if your heroes practice necromancy, and faeries or dryads will also refuse to even talk to you, even less join your forces), and also on the diplomatic skill of your heroes (Ranger is the first hero to get the diplomacy skill, but other characters may also get it if they multi-class into Ranger class).

 

Heroes are very important in the game. You can only have a few, unlike HoMM or similar titles, as each successive hero gets more costly to hire; hiring two heroes of the same class is nigh impossible because it's about ten times more expensive than hiring the fourth hero of a different class. With each level a hero gets, you can pick one of three randomly selected hero-specific skills to learn or improve, and at level 10 you can choose a specialization for the hero, which means either going further the path of the selected class, or multi-classing with a secondary class skillset. Each specialization also grants unique bonuses, and in some cases, alignment modifiers, so for example a Ranger that multi-classes as a Mage is not the same thing as a Mage that multi-classes as a Ranger. This way you can customize your heroes in a huge variety of ways, in accord with the playing style that suits you best.

 

Another strategic aspect is the managing of provinces. Each province is populated by a certain species - mostly it's humans but other races like orcs, halflings, elves, centaurs, lizardfolk etc. are also possible (sometimes a province may be barren and unpopulated, often infested with undead or demonspawn). Much of the province's territory starts unexplored, and it is your heroes' duty to scout and explore new areas (there's no fog that conceals a map, you're just reported the percentage of the territory that is explored in the province). Exploration can reveal special locations, which may be encounters with hostile forces, shops, temples, mage towers, libraries, or special one-time events. Most of the locations that are not encounters can also be sources of quests for a hero to complete for a certain reward. Additionally, the income from a province depends on the amount of explored territory, and the growing population also needs more space to live, which is impossible if the territory is unexplored.

 

An interesting example which is nevertheless quite typical of Eador regadring province exploration is this. One of the places where a random encounter may take place is a derelict windmill. Once it is freed from hostiles, it is possible that after some time the population will repair the windmill and put it back into operation, which in turn will slightly increase the income from that province.

 

In each province, up to three structures can be built by the player. The default tech tree allows to build a granary to protect the population from famine and also boost population growth, a tavern that increases morale of the defending troops and also adds a small bonus to province income, and a small fortress that helps to prevent enemy heroes from capturing a province right away (they'll first need to besiege and capture the fortress). Additionally, there is a number of terrain-specific structures that significantly increase income from a province: in the plains you can build a windmill, a lumber mill can be obviously constructed in areas of high forestation, and mines are built in the hills. All those also grant a bonus to income from a rare resource, if such is found in the province. On top of that, each hero can find designs for special structures as a trophy in an encounter or as a reward for a completed quest; those are one-time only, but grant extra bonuses to provinces in which they are built (regarding income, province defence or population happiness).

 

And yeah, there is population happiness. If folks are unhappy, they can revolt or do other nasty things, resulting in less income. It's not always easy to pacify them, but a variety of means includes special happiness-inducing structures, magic rituals, and the good old oppression.

 

If that were not enough, there's a chance that a completely random event will happen in a province, and you as the leader can choose one of the various options in response to what had happened. In the wake of famine, will you send funds from your treasury to help to the population, or force the reduction of prices on food from merchants? Or maybe you'll use this opportunity to get rich yourself? Will you spend money to entertain the citizens from time to time, or brutally punish slackers to force others into hard work? There are lost of such events, and each has several courses of action as the player's response.

 

BTW, some of the events are not completely random, and in fact can build up into a cause-and-effect chain, reflecting the player's decisions. For example, in a discontented province people may appear who will openly speak against your rule. You can choose to publicly punish them but in fact that will anger the population even more, leading to more outcries in the future, and eventually, an open revolt.

[Saracen 16]

Have you guys seen the "reboot" that's in development? Certainly looks good. A big graphical upgrade, with some extra depth, as well as a lot of the existing foundations in place.