SpellForce: Conquest of Eo

Just played a custom mage for a bit, alchemist mentalist and explored the map. The game is single player/story driven and revolves around uncovering magical secrets and growing your power. It's mostly HoMM style running around with heroes to do quests and gather resources. You also build your tower to become more powerful. At first I was a bit confused because you don't build or conquer cities. You only meld with nodes (similar to master of magic) and grow the influence of your tower. I have to admit that the resource gathering is a bit cumbersome. I prefer managing cities. But you can auto resolve most battles, so the game flow is ok, I guess. Little tip: Splitting stacks of units is done by clicking on the boot/movement symbol below the units. Took me ages to find that out because I always ignore the tutorial messages ^^ The graphics are very nice and the battles/magic fun. The UI interface is much better than in the Master of Magic remake. But I like the city/empire building there more than the single tower I have here. I will have to play a bit more to see whether the story is the same/still motivating to do a second or third playthrough.

As other people mentioned - it's a hexagonal game, not an RPG. I was planning to get a refund, because I was expecting one thing, and got another one - but decided to spend some more time in the game - I really enjoyed its graphical style. After several hours I understood that it's still not an RPG, but a decent strategy and overall I like it. P.S. Please add artbook as an extra.

This game is not an RTS like Spellforce. It is turn based, and it does it very well. The dev made Fantasy General 2, so they are very good at creating challenging and rewarding strategy game. SFCoE gave me the same feelings as the first time I played Master of Magic and Age of Wonders. The art direction is excellent, the mlusic and sounds are good too, creating an immersive experience. The Grimoire is gorgeous. The different elements of the game work well together. The only drawback at the moment is that the main map is the same for all the 3 different kind of mages, you start at a different place. The map is huge and you'll have a lot of things to do. There's already a lot of replayability with the different starts and the different mages. The price is ridiculously low for such a great game.

Alright so I was admittedly pretty frustrated my first afternoon with this game. Couldn't hack Normal, didn't really understand what I was doing or how to get it done, every other turn my tower was getting attacked, and even after few days playing as an Artificer I still have no idea what the recipe is for the lesser mountain goat rune but I did figure out beer can be bought from towns. But! After dropping down to Story to experiment at my own pace, and getting that rune off the very first drop in the tutorial, I have found clearing that obstacle was all I needed to really enjoy the game. That and learning that my most immediate neighbor who kept attacking me could be taken out without inspiring the wrath of the other mages. I was well into midgame before I sacked his tower because I was trying not to pick any fights. This game is both better and worse than Eador which it was cloned from. Better game play, worse writing, altogether though it is a better experience. I would like a journal with quest tracking personally and for the quest mobs to range a little less wildly. It would also be nice if one you unlock a recipe for a rune you could just click on the recipe and have the ingredients pulled for you since you get an awful lot of them by the end. While I am complaining. . .Ever tried to hunt a jelly fish? You won't be able to keep up with it, I had task three heroes to box it in almost immediately and then hope it wandered within both sight and range of one of them. It didn't and I never did find it again. The quest heroes are pretty great though. Read the negative reviews because they aren't wrong but if you are on the fence I would say its worth your time and money. Word of advice? Whatever school of magic you choose for playstyle be sure to take Enchantment also. Being able to give your units flight is a must. There are a lot of locations that cannot be reached any other way, well, until end game when you unlock Teleport.