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For those interested in old school turn based strategy, there is a new game coming out in February from Illwinter Game Design, called Conquest of Elysium 3. Illwinter's previous titles include the Dominions series (Dominions - Priests, Prophets and Pretenders; Dominions 2 and Dominions 3) and the predecessor to the new title, Conquest of Elysium 2. The published release date for CoE3 is February 20th and it will be available from Desura.

There is no demo as of yet, but there will be before the release of the final version.

If you're looking for lots of shiny graphics and animations, you can stop reading right now. The graphics of CoE3 are 2D, sprite based stuff, but they are very well made and beautiful, so it shouldn't be a problem if you don't mind that.

Some features of the game:

• 17 different classes
• roughly 700 different monsters
• dozens of different special abilities
• 45 different schools of magic
• a little shy of 600 separate spells
• random events
• random maps
• map editor
• magic items (circa 100 at last count)
• maximum of 8 players per game
• alliances
• multiplayer (hotseat or over a network)

The gameplay is fast-paced (in terms of how long it takes to do a turn) and depending on map size, games can be fairly short or last a good long time. The game is not too complex, so there is no steep learning curve, especially if you take the time to read the manual. There is a lot less complexity compared to Dominions, which makes it a lot more suitable for casual gaming. If turn based fantasy strategy stuff is something you fancy, I recommend taking a look and at least trying CoE3 when the demo comes out. It is one of the better games in this genre and it will last a good long while before you've played all the options out.

The developer's page is here and screenshots can be found here. Some more stuff can be seen at Indie DB (including a short video and more screenshots) and the game can be preordered from Desura. The progress page / development log is here.

If you're interested in discussion about many features of the game, there has been an active discussion at the Shrapnel Games forums here. The one benefit of a non-NDA beta test was that there is a lot of information out already, which allows people to form a better opinion at the outset.

If you want some idea of what the game is like (or more accurately, some pale shadow of an idea), you can try Conquest of Elysium 2 which is a free download from Shrapnel Games. That one was made in 1997 and had a lot of legacy stuff from even earlier, which definitely shows.

If anyone wants to ask stuff related to this game, go right ahead.

So, it's made by the same guys as Dominions 3. Is it also absurdly hostile to new players and triple the price of what it ought to be?

No and no. The price on Desura is $25, the preorder discount is 15%, so that's $21 and change.

As far as being hostile to new players, no. There is several tons less micromanagement and the game is not nearly as complex. The user interface is more intuitive, more logical and more responsive than many things in the Dom3 user interface.

The manual itself is fairly short and it explains all of the basic mechanics very well (from the ground up, with the assumption that the person reading it has no clue whatsoever about Illwinter's games), which allows anybody to jump in after a fairly cursory look. I should know, since I wrote the damn thing.

I know you said this isn't for graphics whores, but my god that looks like ass. I might have considered it if the game looked even as good the first Age of Wonders game and that was released 13 years ago.

The maps look like screenshots from Dominion 3's combat, which is wierd.

The UI is significantly cleaner and clearer just from looking at screnshots, but they're using the same icons and unit art as they were in their previous games, hence all the tiles with a tiny little grey man in it. It looks far more accessible than those games, though.

Edi, the unit displays etc have a lot less stats/powers/numbers etc. Is the game still as complex mechanically as D2/3, or is it streamlined in some way?

Stark wrote:The maps look like screenshots from Dominion 3's combat, which is wierd.

The reason it looks that way is because CoE3 maps are based on square tiles instead of freeform static images like Dominions maps. In that respect it is much like turning a Dominions battlefield into a map the game is played on.

The map graphics are mostly new, though, with some stuff reused from the Dom3 random map generator graphics (the mountains, but I think that's the only one)

Stark wrote:The UI is significantly cleaner and clearer just from looking at screnshots, but they're using the same icons and unit art as they were in their previous games, hence all the tiles with a tiny little grey man in it. It looks far more accessible than those games, though.

They use same style graphics, which makes for a similar look, but most unit graphics have been redone and look much better. The screenshots are resized, so you can't see the detail. If you want an example of just how much better the quality is (readily apparent in the larger unit sprites), the gryphon in my sig is a screencapture from CoE3 reduced to half size of the actual (100x100 instead of 200x200).

The UI itself is much more streamlined and simplified than it was in Dominions 3. Almost everything is accessible directly from the main screen by keyboard shortcuts. Another thing that helps is that the default background for the game is black, which turns to a slightly matte gray-black inside the UI boxes when opacity settings are turned to full.

The dark red background in Dominions (or dark blue, if one used one of the UI replacements) made things much more muddled there. The upshot in CoE3 is that some of the graphics which were late additions to Dom3 have been reused and look much better. So much so in fact that when I complimented Kristoffer on them, he was mystified until he realized the difference the background and resolution effects made.

Stark wrote:Edi, the unit displays etc have a lot less stats/powers/numbers etc. Is the game still as complex mechanically as D2/3, or is it streamlined in some way?

Nowhere near as complex.

In Dominions all units had somewhere around 12 primary stats (HP, size, attack, defense, precision, strength, morale, protection, magic resistance, encumbrance, mapmove, action points) which were all modified further by the weapons and armor (both structurally separate entities) that the units had. Secondary stats like age also affected stats and magic mechanics affected them, which all contributed to a pretty damn arcane puzzle that was hard to keep track of.

In CoE3 you have HP, Armor, Strength, Magic Resistance and Morale and then the unit has one or more weapons (spells are functionally identical to weapons in terms of mechanics, they just require spellcasting ability to use). Damage is open-ended damage vs open-ended armor and then special resistances and other such are applied. The function of morale is basically Fear Resistance, all fear damage is rolled against morale instead of HP.

Movement is governed by Action Points (normal units have 3, slow units have 2 and fast units have 4), with different terrain costing different amount of AP and special abilities related to movement affecting the total cost (e.g. plains cost 1 AP, forests 2, mountains 3) and if slow units move into terrain that costs more AP than they have, the remainder is deducted from next turn's allowance.

Recruiting stuff happens at citadels (citadel being the equivalent of fort in Dominons) and you can recruit anything from the basic list of your class and from special offers (wizards, other commanders etc). You can only recruit once per citadel per turn if it's from the basic list, but commanders don't count toward that, you can recruit them even if you already recruited something else. All units cost either gold or gold + iron and if you have enough, you can buy them. No fiddling around with resources like in Dominions.

Winning conditions in the game are being the last player (or team) standing and you get eliminated if you lose all commanders or all citadels. There is an option where an entire team must lose all commanders or all citadels of everyone in the team for them to be eliminated.

Resource trading works so that you can use gold to buy special resources (as many as the number of trade points you have) or sell special resources for gold, but only one type of trade per turn. You can't trade with your allies, but you can help your allies conquer resources they need that you don't. In team play, you can take squares from your ally by moving into them if he doesn't have troops there, which makes cooperation fairly easy.

The AI is also more challenging. Unlike in Dominions, which had a single AI that always used the same playbook, each class in CoE3 has a separately programmed AI that takes into account the attributes and special abilities of that class. If you increase the difficulty level (meaning how much of an income bonus the AI gets to gold and special resources), you will be in for a challenge even in SP.

That's more or less the most important stuff.

How does combat work now? Any scripting required like in Dom3?

No scripting is necessary. The combat sequence has pure mages go first, then archers, then melee. Those three are classifications, so even melee units can have ranged attacks or spellcasting, and will use them when they can, but the classification determines where they are placed in the army order.

The only scripting you can do is decide which spells to have your mages memorize. Mages will cast a random spell each combat round from among the ones they have in memory, but will not cast any completely useless spells (e.g. fireball against fire elementals or poison resistance when fighting an army of spearmen who have no poison attacks).

The random casting is a feature, not a bug, because otherwise the magic system could be abused to hell and back with certain classes, mages and spells.

There are a couple of AARs over at the Shrapnel forum that give some more info and screenshots of the game:

Chronicle of the Interregnum
Another AAR without a title.

Both of those need to be restarted, since a version update broke savegame compatibility. No demo yet, but as soon as there is, I'll post links to it.

I quite liked Dom3; I assume from the second AAR that it's this coming out for macs too, is this correct?

Yes. The Mac version is being tested, though the newest 2.94 has not yet been compiled for Mac. Probably later today or tomorrow, but it's in the works. Like all Illwinter games, coE3 is being developed on Linux and then ported to Windows and Mac.

How different is this game from CoE2? Is it a bunch of iterative changes or are there any major overhauls or additions?

Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:How different is this game from CoE2? Is it a bunch of iterative changes or are there any major overhauls or additions?

Iterative changes in terms of many of the mechanics, but the user interface has been totally overhauled and made easier to use. The magic mechanics are completely new compared to what passed for magic spells in CoE2, though the ritual stuff works very much the same.

The graphics are obviously much improved.

Some other completely new things are the map editor, which has very powerful scenario editing capabilities that allow the construction of different events, messages and other things triggered by various things. So far 10 different trigger conditions and 23 different types of events, so it would be possible to do an involved scenario that could be played from 8 different positions with 8 different plotlines.

I'm more hopeful after seeing the AARs.

One of the beta testers has uploaded a video on Youtube. It's 18 minutes long and goes through several of the classes.

Linkski

That should give some idea of how the user interface works. The music score (which is good) can be heard as well as the sound effects (which are admittedly primitive).

A lot more youtube videos have been cropping up.

Demonologist game
Burgmeister (essentially a hobbit class)
Necromancer

CoE3 has hit version 3.00 and is slated to be published on schedule, possibly even a day earlier (19th). No demo yet, but that is business as usual for Illwinter, they generally finish their games, then strip stuff out in order to make a demo.

Just pre-ordered CoE3 and I'm eagerly awaiting the game's release. I really wish the developers would consider releasing the game early for people who pre-ordered, even if it's just a beta, but I know they have their reasons for doing otherwise. I've just found myself watching every single play through of the game I can find.

http://youtu.be/SneQl7uQvEs <-- this is a gameplay video of the High Cultist class, again showing some of the excellent planning and game design that went into CoE3's development. Here's to counting down until the 19th.

Conquest of Elysium 3 has now been published on Desura. Unfortunately, there is no demo yet, given Illwinter's penchant for doing demos later than the actual release. The Desura CoE3 forums are a good place to look for discussion and more info on the game as well as opinions from new players.

Bumping this thread to the top because now that the game has been out for a month, there is also a demo version that you can download from here.

Have to ask - are there plans for future content (i.e. new factions, i.e. a Vanjarl commander)?

Feedback from friends is that it's a bit on the light side in terms of replayability.

It's an Illwinter game, so yes, there is going to be new content. For an example, there is new class, the Voice of El, in the works. That one will be along in a couple of patches, I'd expect. It will not be the last new thing to be added either. Compare Dominions 3 at version 3.00 and at version 3.27. A similar level of support can be expected.

As far as replayability goes, I offer to disagree with your friends.

Obviously from a mechanistic point of view the game plays the same:
- Start game
- Choose map size, society and advanced options
- Choose opponents, AI level and alliance options
- Begin
While (not defeated)
- Explore
- Conquer resources
- Build troops
- Bash enemy
- Repeat until you win or lose

Then again, you can do that mechanistic reduction for any strategy game out there.

Where CoE3 shines is the random map generation and the scenario building options in it. The modding options are also being quickly expanded. With those factors in mind, playing around with the various options gives you massive replayability for single player. To get an idea of just how different sorts of challenges can be done, take a look at the Trial by Fire challenges over at the Proboards CoE3 forum.

Those alone will keep me busy for a long time. Some of them aren't all that easy.

And then there is the MP side of it, playing against other people. The enormous maps aren't that well suited to those (unless you like long drawn out affairs) but the large and huge maps are.

Take a look at the demo and see if you like it. It has three classes out of the current 17 enabled and all of those are of the type that show you more than just the very basics of the game. The demo also contains the full manual, so it also gives you an introduction into the entire game indirectly.

Ok, thanks.

As a caveat the friends who pointed out the replayability issue are huge fans of Dom3, so maybe they were expecting something more along the lines of Dom3's massive scope.

Perhaps. Quite a few Dom3 players came to CoE3 expecting Dom4 even though it was repeatedly and strenuously pointed out to them to specifically NOT do that during the beta testing process when the dev log thread at Shrapnel was the place where almost all the info went out.

Gameplay wise CoE3 is a lot more like Warlords 2 and Warlords 3 than it is like Dominions of any stripe.

Liked the demo enough to buy the game and enjoying it so far. Always wanted to get Dom 3 but wasn't willing to shell out $55 and waited for a price drop that never came. I like this game's approach better anyway. Depth through varied options and strategies, not insane complexity and reams of stats. Doesn't seem to have a very big or active community so far, though, as I haven't seen any mods yet that do more than change the UI and people don't seem to post more than once / day on the Desura forum. Hopefully that will change.

Glad to hear you like it.

The active community is fairly small at the moment. The activity may pick up some now that I am back from abroad. I've been away for the past week, so I have some catching up to do, including making some alterations to the existing modding manual.

Modding in any large scale didn't get off the ground before patch 3.08 due to several problems (such as even some basic mod commands causing crash to desktop because a patch was pushed out early with no warning).

The current version (3.08) addresses most of those, but the modding support needs to be extended more in order to be easily able to do any big mods.

The reason there are so many GUI mods is that Thalic, one of the moderators on the Desura forum, is a graphics artist by profession and modding the GUI is essentially just replacing the stock graphics with other stuff. His first mods were a strict overwrite of the original files, but Johan added modding commands to allow the replacement from other directories.

I have a mod in the works that should alter the wildlife to make it less aggressive, but it has been on the backburner for a while due to all the other stuff.