Eador Genesis Demo

[haphazard1]

Found time to play some more turns. I conquered the centaur lands and obtained a source of redwood -- very helpful for reducing costs of various buildings and archery equipment. Centaurs are nasty opponents -- fast moving and with ranged attacks, they love to target your back-line units. I lost one bowman and had a bunch of injured units, but the healer I had recruited was able to help patch everyone up.

Advancing through the halfling province of Black Ravines, I found the local lord's borders:



Note that Far Smokes Ridge province shows the Gang of Thieves guard is present. Guards of various types can be hired to protect a province; anyone invading must fight the guards first, then a second battle immediately after against any additional units that may be present in the province.

The gang of thieves guard is pretty much what it sounds like:



That is a lot of thieves. Fortunately they are not very fast, especially on rough terrain, and my scout plus bowmen were able to shoot them full of arrows from a distance. But there were enough for some to get close, and my spearmen took damage and were poisoned (the thieves can throw poisoned daggers, quite nasty).

The local lord had a hero (scout) with a couple spearmen in Far Smokes Ridge, so I had to fight them immediately after the thieves. With most of my troops wounded from the fight with the gang of thieves, my healer was extremely valuable in keeping everyone alive. I had built a sanctuary (tier 1 "good" magic building) and then a recruitment building to allow hiring the brothers of light as healers -- not cheap but well worth it. My units took a bunch more damage (mostly from the enemy scout hero, who did to me exactly what my scout has been doing to others), but the province was conquered.

This revealed the local lord's stronghold:



His capital province has the Recruits guard which will need to be defeated, plus fortifications that will have to be sieged to crate a breach in the walls before I can try to finish off the final defenders. Losses are likely, and the siege will require a number of turns, so I have my warrior hero bringing reinforcements from my own stronghold. Your heroes can exchange troops and equipment if they are in the same province, plus the warrior will be on hand to make a second attempt if the scout falls in battle.

Hopefully I can find time tomorrow to complete this shard, and then show the astral, but life has been busy lately.

[haphazard1]

Found some time this morning to complete the shard. My scout defeated the recruits guard (various tier 1 units, not too tough) in the local lord's capital province and began a siege of the stronghold. It requires multiple turns to breach the walls of a stronghold, then you have the option to spend extra turns sieging to expand the breaks in the walls. If you are willing to spend the time (and do not get attacked by other forces controlled by the enemy you are sieging -- they might have heroes with armies that can move to break the siege) you can completely eliminate the fortifications. But that takes a LOT of turns. I spent two extra turns beyond the minimum to get a "large breach" and then began the final assault.



You can see the main breach in the center of the wall, with a smaller break to the north. The defenders inside the stronghold receive various combat bonuses, mostly boosts to ranged attack and defense -- fortunately the local lord only had four spearmen present in the garrison. His stronger troops were defeated earlier in the battle with his hero. So this fight was pretty easy once the siege was finally done, and this shard is now mine.



I gain the ability to construct half a dozen buildings (these are economic and morale infrastructure -- no useful military or magic buildings from this shard, sadly) in future shards, plus the scroll in the lower half represents the ability to hire the Gang of Thieves province guards like the one I fought. Unlocking new buildings and other options by conquering shards is how you open up new options in the campaign -- right now I can not actually build much of anything beyond tier 1 structures, so stronger units and magic are not available even if I have the money. Getting some better options unlocked is a very high priority.

Finishing up with this shard, I am given the option to spend astral energy to "ascend" one of my heroes into the astral plane for use in later shards. However, the cost is more than I can afford at the moment. My heroes will have to remain behind.

I return to the astral plane, and meet my first rival:



I have a conversation with Oinor, who is very big on maintaining high karma. The karma system is Eador is based on your choices and actions: treating the people of your lands well, using "good" magic such as healing spells and protections, and allying with "good" races such as dwarves and halflings increases your karma. Cruelty to your people, using "dark" magic such as necromancy and curses, and working with "evil" races such as orcs will decrease your karma. The effects of your choices accumulate over time and carry over from shard to shard, and affect how your rivals and various populations will react to you. Populations with opposed karma will be very unhappy with your rule, causing unrest and rebellions; at extreme differences they may be completely unwilling to deal with you.

So far I have been using good magic (mostly healing) and have not worked with any darker units like orcs. Mostly because at this stage of the campaign I don't actually have the ability to do very much magic, either good or evil, or recruit any units other than the simplest ones (which are generally neutral). So I am very slightly positive on karma, and Oinor encourages me to keep working for good causes. We will see what happens...if I unlock some useful "evil" infrastructure I may have to disappoint Oinor. Right now I will take anything I can get.

Here is what the astral looks like:



You can see my home shard in the lower center -- this is the combination of all the shards I have conquered to date, merged into one as I try to unite all of Eador under my control. Oinor's home shard is in the upper left -- it is slightly larger than mine. I will have to do something about that! Several unclaimed shards are floating around; Algor is highlighted. You can select each one to see what benefits conquering it would provide. Also note my astral energy reserve at the lower left; currently I have 112, which is not a whole lot.

Each turn in the astral you can choose a shard to invade, and your home shard generates some astral energy to boost your reserve. You can choose to do nothing and just accumulate energy, but the campaign has a hard limit on the total number of astral turns. This is not actually explained in game until much later, but since I have played Eador before I am aware that skipping turns is generally not a good idea. Time to get busy conquering more shards!

After looking at the available shards (new ones will appear in future astral turns), I select my next target:



Guernire is a small shard, one step up from the tiny shards I have played so far. Shard size is very important -- costs for troops and buildings do not scale, so larger shards mean more income (from more provinces) and longer struggles to conquer them. This allows for building more infrastructure, more advanced units and magic, and higher level heroes with larger armies. The previous tiny shard took just over 30 turns to conquer, my main hero reached level 8, and I never had any troops or magic beyond tier 1. This shard will almost certainly see significantly more development of infrastructure, and I will probably need at least a level 10-12 hero with some tier 2 units to defeat my opponents.

Guernire's potential rewards include +2 astral energy per turn, some more buildings that will be unlocked (again economic and morale infrastructure, not military or magic), and some continuing bonuses for future shards with a militia unit and a hand axe (a melee weapon for my heroes) that I will start with on future shards. The militia unit and axe are not much, but at this stage of the campaign they will be useful. You start new shards with almost nothing -- your stronghold and some gold is about it. You need to hire a hero and build all your infrastructure -- your stronghold has no buildings to begin with, so you have no magic spells available, no equipment for your heroes in the shops, and can not recruit any units. It takes a while to get going, so even a couple very weak starting options are a nice boost.

After selecting the shard I want to invade, I get the option to spend astral energy for various bonuses:



Most of the options are locked or grayed out -- I will have to unlock these options by conquering shards. The only options currently possible are to increase my starting gold (the slider at the upper left) or to bring a hero into the shard from the astral plane (the icon under 'Other Benefits' in the lower center). I do not have any heroes available since I could not afford to bring a hero from the last shard into the astral. I need more astral energy to do that, so I choose not to spend any on extra gold. My conquest of Guernire will have to make do with the default starting funds.

Onward to the next conquest!

[NobleHelium]

If you bring a hero into the Astral and then bring him to another shard, do you then have to pay again to bring him back to the Astral the second time? Or does he become a permanent "Astral hero" that you can call upon for any future shards (once you pay the fee for that shard), assuming he doesn't die?

[haphazard1]

That is a very good question, and I am not sure of the answer. (It has been a long time since I played campaign mode.) The vast majority of the cost is bringing the hero into the astral; to deploy such a hero into the shard being invaded only cost 10 (at least in the case shown above). Bringing my level 8 scout hero into the astral would have cost over 150 astral energy. That price would have included bringing all his equipment, known spells, and army -- it may be possible to bring just the hero for about 100 energy...which is still very expensive. My home shard is generating (I think) 12 astral energy per turn at the moment, and a small shard like Guernire will only add another 2 per turn. So spending hundreds of energy is not going to be happening for a while, obviously. Later in the campaign when you have added 25 or 30 shards to your home shard, a lot more will be possible.

I think Naufragar mentioned that the campaign is ridiculously long, right?

To answer another question from earlier: I have two opponents on Guernire, a local lord and Oinor. So you can run into both types of AIs on a map. As shards get larger, there will be more opponents trying to gain control; the tiny shards I started with had only one opponent, and now a small has two. I am not sure what the maximum is for the really big shards.

[haphazard1]

A brief update: Starting play on the small shard of Guernire, I have taken control of the provinces around my stronghold of Whitestone:



I am fortunate to have sources of redwood and iron already -- this will reduce costs for buildings in my stronghold and recruiting units. In the screenshot you can see my current income in the bottom center (from hovering over the current gold/gems totals shown). I am currently cash flow positive, but this is with a very minimal army for my hero and no garrisons or province guards. I am going to need a lot more money. I have been building economic buildings to increase my per turn income, but this is a slow process and only adds one or two gold/turn. Most of my gold comes from battle loot as my hero defeats enemies.

[naufragar]

What does the crossed swords icon above Forbidden Shore mean?

[haphazard1]

What does the crossed swords icon above Forbidden Shore mean?

I will have to double check the next time I start the game, but I believe Forbidden Shore is deadlands.

Further expansion is going to be difficult. Water to the east, deadlands, some empty hills in Bone Ridge (likely harpies to fight), and swamps. No good options.

[NobleHelium]

What are deadlands?

[haphazard1]

I checked the Forbidden Shore province again; I had the terminology wrong. The province is uninhabited; this means that you can never control it, because it has no population. You can defeat the guardians, and then pass through the province or explore any local sites that may exist, but it will never generate income, be able to build structures, or (I think) have guards.

The specific type of the province is 'Land of the Dead' -- undead guardians, presumably. Not a very helpful place, overall.

My hero has been exploring locations within my provinces, fighting various enemies for more loot and experience while I build more infrastructure. I eliminated a Thieves Guild in Whitestone that was draining away a big chunk of my capital's income; that helped nicely with getting my economy in better shape. Some inns and saw mills in various provinces are also adding to my income, which is now up to +25 gold/turn even with a larger army for my hero.

I think my next move is to push north, probably into Bone Ridge. It is second ring to my stronghold, so should be easier than the third ring lizard men in the Swan Pool swamps. I am worried about a counter-attack if I break through into the territory of one of my opponents; if I lose a lot of units fighting the unclaimed province encounter and then face an enemy hero, things could get ugly quickly.

[haphazard1]

Another update. I have taken control of another ring of provinces to the north:



I can see hints of blue borders to the northeast, beyond my current move target of Ardoire. I expect contact next turn with whichever opponent that is. Not visible in the screenshot are hints of green borders to the east across the water; I am guessing that I will have to circle around the water to reach that opponent.

The swamps were full of giant slugs and basilisks -- tough enemies with poison attacks, but slow moving. Not too difficult with my scout, who has reached level 8:



His army is very basic -- a bunch of spearmen for defense and a little bit of offense, plus a healer to help keep everyone alive. I would love to add tier 2 units to strengthen this force, but I am not able to build any at this point in the campaign. I have built enough infrastructure in my stronghold to get better equipment for my scout. The upgraded bow and upgraded arrows add 4 points to his ranged attack compared to the default gear he started with, and his improved skills add a couple more. Shooting enemies for 13 potential damage is a lot better than 7. I also have more magic spells available now, and am using a combination of magic arrow for damage and cure wounds for healing.

Once I make contact with the blue opponent, I will need to fight my way to their stronghold and try to eliminate them. Then I can consolidate their territory and start moving against the green opponent. There is a lot of fighting still ahead on this small shard, even though I have already spent the same number of turns as it took to finish the previous tiny shard.