Eador: Genesis

I really want to love this game, but I find it too difficult on Beginner. No matter what I do, I cannot win a single shard. I've played 4 different campaigns. I play tactic games all the time and I don't usually have trouble with them. I beat Ultima: Quest of the Avatar, and Gauntlet, as well as Final Fantasy Tactics WotL. I'd like to compare this to Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares. Eador: Genesis is a rather fun game with a frustrating difficulty spike. There is no reason that Beginner should have such fast A.I. There is no feature to save the game file so you can reload it. I do not have time to play through a world in one sitting. No save feature keeps me from giving this a high rating. The combat system really reminds me of Heroes of Might and Magic, and it also reminds me of the old school Ultima games. There are 4x space elements to this game, but they are limited to just picking worlds to take over. You cannot do much else in space. The ultimate flaw in this game is the fast A.I. , which somehow manages to build large armies that appear out of nowhere. (Sound familiar? MoO2 Silicoids and Klackons, lol). It really just needs a balance patch. I figure the difficulty will keep me coming back, until I finally rage quit.

Eador: Genesis offers the best tactical battles among similar games, deeper and more interesting than in HoMM 3 or Kings Bounty, imho (although these games have their own strengths). The game has simple graphics and it's pretty hardcore, but if you like this kind of games, i highly recommend giving it a try. I highly recommend the mod "New Horizons", which adds a lot of content, new races, units, spells, buildings, abilities, events and more, plus improved AI. This mod takes the game to a new level and greatly improves replayability.

FOR THE QUADRILLIONTH TIME...... UGH! DIFFICULTY! - the AI cheats, cheats and then cheats some more. It enjoys massive bonuses to well, simply everything, and freedom from all restrictions and game rules the player is subject to. - if that were not enough, the RNG in tactical battles is heavily biased against you. You know what I mean, when you and the AI have the same units, at the same level, their hits go like "10,10,9,9", when yours go "1,1,0,0". - only one building per turn? Just adds tedium to the proceedings. - FORCED IRONMAN mode. That is one of my serious pet hates in a game. - lots of "difficulty levels", but they are all illusionary. There is only one true difficulty level, "IMPOSSIBRU!" - random events are ALL bad, cripplingly so, you won't survive beyond two or three of these. - you get options to mitigate the above, but the cost to do so is even MORE crippling than the event's punishment itself! - suffers from the curse of "repetitiveness" more than is usual in games. The only mode worth playing is "hotseat, against yourself"! Playing against the AI is just NOT an option. Such a shame as this could have been so much more. There are mods, but apparently they INCREASE the difficulty even further! I mean, WHAT? What kind of morons do we have working with this game?!

A good game but has a steep learning curve.

I've been playing Eador for a couple weeks now and it has sucked me in. I've had trouble putting it down...that is until the cpu becomes so overbalanced that you're stuck backing up a turn repeatedly until you finally realize you're in too deep and have to start the whole campain over again. The strategy is fun and it is very much like Heroes of Might and Magic except deeper in a lot of areas. The graphics may turn you off at first but once you get absorbed in the game world you don't really notice anymore. Your individual troops gain experience but most of the dregs are easily replaceable and you won't be counting on experience for them until you get stronger creatures. The heroes upgrade as well but buying new ones is expensive and you typically won't run around with more than 3. The armies also cost gold to keep them each turn so managing your resources is very important. The campaign is fun to progress through but my god once you lose a few shards (stages) and miss out on some of the special features that come with winning those shards, you might as well pack it in. The game gives you no opportunity to try again due to the autosave. It's either back up one move (which you will do a lot of as you fail to anticipate the cpu's behavior early on) or start from the beginning. It's an interesting concept and after I try the campaign again, I may have different feelings but the game is frustratingly difficult at times due to the computer having access to so many things you do not. (By frustrating, I mean launch your laptop across the room...which thankfully I took a deep breath and decided to vent in this review instead.) It gets cumbersome at times wandering around the map exploring each area in hopes of finding that special spell scroll that will allow you to finally conquer the enemy's final territory. More than once I had the enemy pinned down but was unable to defeat their army of troll defenders. Edit: just tried campaign again. Hate this game