Sorcerer King – Rivals

I liked Sorcerer King, because with the feature, the overlord is watching you, it brought some fresh air in this genere. Rivals brings some nice improvements to the game. It's just Sorcerer King with some new features. While this expansion is standalone you have to consider if these improvements are worth the price for you, when you already own Sorcerer King. When you don't own Sorcerer King yet, you may consider only buying Rivals. As already said, it's only an improved version of Sorcerer King.

Part of the low score for this game is the fact it's standalone - people who purchased original Sorcerer King are upset they need to pay $30 for few extras this game has over original. I expect Startdock will fix this on GOG, on Steam you can already pay $15 and upgrade from original to Rivals. Game itself is pretty neat, definitely has that one more turn feeling. For some players it may feel too simplified - like if you like huge tactical battlefield in Age of Wonders you may be upset that battlefield is way smaller. I actually prefer it this way - battles end up being much faster and you can better focus on empire building. The biggest downside for me, as with most similar games, is AI. Like, higher difficulty levels don't get computer to "play smarter" - it just gives his units more HP, more damage, more of everything. So at some point you really don't have much choice but to play certain strategies... and here is one of them: For 1st game I recommend you take Tinker and rush Archivist abilities. Have two explorers ready and when you get first Archivist ability all you really need to do in order to progress fast is keep picking up chests and going to taverns/libraries/other locations - you'll get so much Lore and Soverign points. In the meantime keep leveling up your hero (Drogon the Dwarf Lord) toward Polar Vortex. Once you have that ability battles are pretty much over. Build/enchant items for your Dwarf Lord that raise his Initiative and Damage and then every battle will be: Polar Vortex, Dwarven Fury, done.

Too much bugs in abilities, spells and effects - many of them are calculated wrong or doesn't work at all. Example you've got 2 same type units lets say ogres. Give one of them ring of +25% experience or cast the same spell: both ogres gets same amount every fight. There MANY wrong calculations like this. Some repetive fights (like same enemy on same map with the same starting positions... :( All in all it could be great game. It has plenty of cool mechanics but looks just broken and finished by one man team without testing. It breaks fun of play

Awesome game. Very interesting and well done.