Deity Empires on Sale at Steam

Started by airboy, May 13, 2019, 04:30:16 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Jarhead0331

How many different races and/or empires are there? Can you customize an empire?
Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Tpek

Quote from: JasonPratt on May 13, 2019, 06:43:27 PM
Quote from: Philippe on May 13, 2019, 05:45:36 PM
I'm temperamentally allergic to diets.

But I'd be curious to know what Jason Pratt thinks of this one.

lol'd at the joke about the thread title!

I didn't even know I have this game! I know nothing about it.

In fact, Steam thinks I have this game (I can write a review) and also has no idea I have this game (it's missing from my game list)...

This might answer your question:
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=23213.msg639254#msg639254

JasonPratt

Ah! -- yep, I can buy it not play it, but I can review it because I did buy it once and refunded it.

Obviously I can't comment on the current state. And I must have blanked it out of my mind immediately!  :hide:
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

FarAway Sooner

I'd be curious to know if the different races or gods play differently, or if they're mostly just an abstracted bunch of bonuses that could be on a spreadsheet?

solops

Two days ago my wife and I were on the way home from running errands and we decided to drive through a burger joint and get supper. I got a double meat burger and drink (no fries) and she got a burger Jr meal....for EIGHTEEN frickin' dollars!!! If a couple of crummy chain burgers is going to cost me that much I can blasted sure shell out 15 bucks for this game which will almost certainly give me a lot more pleasure than that burger did even if I just play it halfway through one time.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Tpek

Quote from: solops on May 15, 2019, 04:21:20 PM
Two days ago my wife and I were on the way home from running errands and we decided to drive through a burger joint and get supper. I got a double meat burger and drink (no fries) and she got a burger Jr meal....for EIGHTEEN frickin' dollars!!! If a couple of crummy chain burgers is going to cost me that much I can blasted sure shell out 15 bucks for this game which will almost certainly give me a lot more pleasure than that burger did even if I just play it halfway through one time.

LoL, when you live in a country with ultra-cheap food and forget that in other countries around the world $18 would only get you one crummy burger :P
(I'm not poking fun at you, just at the fact you live in a country where the food is so very cheap while I'm in a country where the food is a bit over-priced)

Tanaka

#21
I put this one off because of the graphics. Bought it on sale because I kept hearing and reading good things but could not get past the graphics and put it on the shelf. One day I started perusing the forums and steam reviews and downloaded recommended graphics mods and finally decided to give it a chance and started playing. And then I could not stop playing. I have been blown away by the DEEPNESS, customization options, and Dev support of this game.

It is everything I ever wanted in a Fantasy 4X. It is Master of Magic Deluxe 100 times better. It is finally the true successor. So many game options offered and so moddable. Grab some mods and it looks and plays even better. This game is a hidden gem few have discovered yet. And the Devs keep adding what the players ask for. Be sure you subscribe to the Beta updates. Amazing support! Give this one a chance you will be glad you did! Just keeps getting better!

I highly recommend watching DasTactics new videos:

https://www.twitch.tv/dastactic/videos?filter=all&sort=time

Some other great reviews:

Recommended
93.7 hrs on record
POSTED: MARCH 4
As a player of AOWIII, Fallen Enchantress LH, Eador, Heroes Might and Magic, Warlock, Dominions 4, and Master of Magic, I can say this is the best game out there. It has Civic (Civilization) research, a building tree per each city, land development such as farms, mines , windmills, trader post, it has resources like wheat, wine, gold, silver, magic gems. City screen has 9 pages of info. A beautiful hex map, randomly generated and being able to set many options. Need food and resources to develop cities and roads. Tactical battles are on a huge hex map where terrain is important and you have direct control over units. Units are themed to their faction. There are numerous sites of neutral enemies to clear out to be able to establish more cities or gain gold, food, resources, experience. Already simple to install mods have made units, monsters, and structures on strategic map awesome. There is a great 10 page spreadsheet of units and also pages on all spells. The game is a beautiful blend of economics, research in civics, magic, empire building and warfare. Developer is continuously updating game, unfortunately he doesn't publicize this on store page but look under discussions to see their hard work and response to ideas. An excellent game and I whole heartily recommend.

Recommended
47.3 hrs on record
POSTED: MARCH 30
After playing hundreds of games over the last 30 years or so I've formed the opinion that the cream of the indie games are the best out there. Deity Empires, Aggressors Rome, Xenonauts, Spiderweb games etc. are, in my opinion, some of the best games in their respective genres. Why?
1. They respect your time. No long cut scenes and movies. No fluff. No tacked on, unnecessary "me too" features. Just tight, interesting game play loops.
2. They have good AI, or at least credible AI. No erratic, static or aimless back and forth AI unit movement.
3. They have interesting emergent game play based on the interaction of the AI routines and the game mechanics. Not relying on scripted linear story arcs with little replayability.
4. They have an open world/sandbox nature that invites you to experiment and try out your own myriad strategies.

Deity Empires is an excellent game for anyone who appreciates these features. There are also mods available to improve the 2D functional graphics if that's an issue. I quite like the arcane UI.....it's fun to discover the wealth of detail and stat. tracking going on behind the scenes as you dig down through the pages! You don't need to know half of it to enjoy the game.

Finally, my experience with all these indie games:

1st 5 minutes: What is this crap? Look at these tragic graphics! What's this 2 frame animation? (or none in this case)
30 minutes later: I'll just clear this lair/finish this task/build this unit..then I'll quit this lame game.
2 hours later: What just happened? How does that work? Oh no, what is that approaching?
Indeterminate future time: .....silence.....the world has been entered....the graphics look real....lost touch with reality!

Recommended
139.7 hrs on record
POSTED: MARCH 4
This review is from the perspective of someone who has played a significant amount of the Age of Wonders series and the Fall from Heaven 2 mod for Civ4. I've also dabbled in Endless Legend, Fallen Enchantress, Dominions, and Master of Magic.

Right now this game feels like a cross of Age of Wonders and FFH2, and I love it. Below are some of my thoughts:

City Development (Tall vs Wide):

Cities start weak but can become incredible powerhouses given time and investment. For example, a starting city will produce approximately 100 gold per turn, which is enough to fund a low tier army or a level 1 improvement every 5 turns. My capitol in my latest game, however, produces 4000 (!) gold a turn, and is still not yet fully developed. I basically don't have to care about income because this city is basically El Dorado.

Now, it was not cheap to get there. Development costs gold and a ton of it, which means that I had to neglect my other cities to develop my super city. I find this an elegant answer to the "tall vs wide" question - wide is cheap but doesn't scale super well, but tall takes a ton of resources to get off the ground.

Income per City to Unit Cost Ratio and City Defenses:

This ratio is useful for measuring how defensible cities are in general. For example, if each city can easily afford 10 armies, it is highly defensible - it has one army for city defense and 9 armies to defend in the field or attack. However, if a city can only afford 1/4 of an army, it is not defensible - you would need 4 cities to afford one army, which can only defend those cities with proper positioning (i.e., by intercepting hostile armies before they get to the cities).

In Deity Empires, cities have a high City Income/Unit Cost ratio. At the start, cities can afford approximately 1 stack of low tier units for defense. For clarification, low tier units cost from 8-30 gold per turn, middle tier units cost 30-80, and high tier units cost 100-180. (There exist some super units that can cost up to 500 gold, but those are rare). Going back to my super city above that produces 4000 gold, that city can afford 10 standard armies, which is more than enough to cover my fronts.

Now, this is important because losing cities is harsh. Unless the city is taken over by a deity of your race (or maybe alignment?), the city is instantly destroyed. If the city is not destroyed, the population will tank. Either way, you do not want to lose cities. Thankfully, several buildings contribute to defense. You can create and upgrade walls significantly, you can add up to 6 defensive towers (which themselves can be upgraded a ton) for ranged support, and several buildings provide bonuses to city combat. As a result, a powerful city can be super daunting to take down, especially if you're playing against a high difficulty AI, who will happily build every defensive building it can in addition to stocking large cities with its best troops. I love it.

Combat:

Hex based and relatively standard. Everything works as it's supposed to, and it's fun to figure out how all the systems work. Low and middle tier units remain useful all-game, and can often take down high tier units with proper magic support. My only criticism is that there is no default zone of control mechanic - it exists only as an upgrade for certain units with large shields, and is represented by a really odd looking magic effect.. I would prefer that a zone of control exist by default for all melee units.

Magic: Tons of spells. Combat summons and crowd control spells are super powerful. Most summon spells and upgrades can be applied out of combat as well. Some summoned units can summon other units, which is as hilarious and awesome as it sounds. For example 8 Angels with some +mana items can produce 16 lesser angels each battle. That's an instant, although extremely costly, game winner.

Direct damage spells start off weak but scale with your deity's or unit's magic level. For example, mass fireball with spell level 10 doubles the damage and increases the AOE by one hex (from 1-2, which adds about 12 additional hexes of range). That spell can wipe half a low tier army in one shot. It is awesome.]

Unit Development and Leveling:

Leveling comes slowly but can be game changing. Furthermore, units can be "cored," which gives them a morale boost and allows them to revived indefinitely, so you can keep units you like all game. I currently have a level 10 wizard unit that can cast the mass fireball spell mentioned above several times at spell level 15. He is a goddamn hero and one man siege machine. He has died at least once and has returned to wreck face. He is Wizard-Jesus.

However, magic units benefit from leveling much more than other units. They get extra mana, spell levels, and access to extra spells, while your melee units can get a few neat traits and extra hit chance. All units get some additional evasion, magic resist, and armor chance, but it feels insignificant. So, the best leveling plan involves focusing on your magic units. Which is fine, as experience wouldn't make a group of pikemen into demigods, whereas mages getting ridiculous is standard fantasy fare, but I would like non-magic units to get additional health or something.

There is no level cap, but it is difficult to get past level 10 in a standard game.

Items: You can make your own items which mainly cost mana. They are produced instantly but have a cooldown before they can be assigned to units. The cooldown is dependent on the cost of the item. Items are not lost upon unit death - instead, they enter a 5 turn cooldown and be re-assigned. They are super expensive but very worth it. You can add as many effects and bonuses to items as you can afford.

Diplomacy:

Not a focus. There is no real diplomacy, and everyone will eventually declare war on you Age of Wonders style. AIs with the persuasive trait can form alliances, but I have yet to do so myself. Contact with the AI will continually degrade relations, even if you are of the same alignment. This is a wargame.

AI: Solid. I play on very hard, and the AI is capable of developing cities and fielding solid stacks of units. I have lost several border cities to unexpected and coordinated pushes. The AI is smart enough to hit your cities/armies with several stacks in one turn, so you have to be careful and make sure you have enough battle mana to survive the entire turn.

Updates: The game has been updated several times in the last few weeks. They've added several new spells, units, mechanics, and a whole new race. The dev team also communicates regularly and takes feedback well.

Other Notes: There is no music, and that is weird (NEVER MIND, THEY JUST ADDED MUSIC LOL). Find a soundtrack you like and play it over the game. Graphics range from good to terrible, and can be at times inconsistent. Most units are cool, but some are just goofy as hell (I would delete the dwarf balloon bomber in an instant if I could). You can increase the stack size to 18, but the AI doesn't handle it well without gold boosts. Also, it makes cities less defensible (see above) and weakens the relative power of magic in any given fight, so stick to 8. Research and upgrades range from game-changing (portals! item creation! fireball towers!) to small incremental upgrades (+2% food). I like both.

Suggestions:

a) I would pay for more DLC. Please make more DLC or expansions. I would pay a lot.
b) Make it more worthwhile to level up non-magic units. Maybe just decrease the exp required for each level?
c) Weight the mercenary chance to units we can't produce normally
d) Add more options to the item creation. The less balanced the better. I mainly just make + mana and spell level items. It would be dope if I could add health/mana regen, access to spells that i've researched, etc.

Conclusion: Wizard-Jesus just took out half an army in one turn. Strongly recommend.


RedArgo

Convinced, now just got to find time to play it.

Gusington

Wow Tanaka - that is some writeup. Got me interested.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Rayfer

Quote from: Gusington on May 16, 2019, 07:41:47 AM
Wow Tanaka - that is some writeup. Got me interested.

+1  Time to reconsider.

airboy

This is what I was talking about.  I read several of those Steam reviews and decided to buy.  The one from the guy with 139.7 hours of play was the one who tipped the balance. 

I've not started play yet.  I have purchased and downloaded.  Have a lot to do over the next Month or so.

W8taminute

Great post Tanaka!  I learned some things about the game through your review that I wasn't aware of as I'm only 95 minutes of play time into the game. 

Deity Empires rocks and if TBS fantasy setting is your bag then this game is for you. 
"You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

Romulan Commander to Kirk

Rayfer

Quote from: W8taminute on May 16, 2019, 09:00:22 AM
Great post Tanaka!  I learned some things about the game through your review that I wasn't aware of as I'm only 95 minutes of play time into the game. 

Deity Empires rocks and if TBS fantasy setting is your bag then this game is for you.

I love/hate you guys.  I was committed to purchasing nothing until Field of Glory: Empires comes out.  And now this game pops up out of nowhere.  My resolve has serous cracks but hasn't yet crumbles.  :hide:

Gusington



слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

DennisS

Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 14, 2019, 04:21:09 PM
How many different races and/or empires are there? Can you customize an empire?

There are three different types of deities...good, neutral, and evil. Good deities have humies, dwarfs, and elves. Evil deities have orcs, blood elves, and someone else. Not sure what three races the neutral deity has.

So..nine races. Like Master of Magic, you're given a pool of points to spend. Either to buy spellbooks at 2 points each, or a rather large number of skills, at 1 to 10 points.

For my first game, I used a "good" deity, with elves. Took two books of nature magic. with 21 points (out of 25) remaining, I took Nature Mastery for 5, Merchant for 5, Artificer (to created magic items!) for 5, Battle caster for 5, and level 1 of "Rich" for a point.

There is an infinite combination of skills. I should have taken administrator and road building, to go along with merchant. I like enormous empires.