Excuse the necrobump, but I'm thinking of buying this game.

Has SF: Platinum still not received the latest v1.61.10170 that Steam users have had for over two years? If not, what's the latest version of it on GOG?

hi,

GoG is still on 1.54 (the most stable and original one), where 1.6X is split in 3 different branches on steam with no real support for any of these.

Hope i could help :-)

Greetings: NeoX

Cheers mate. Appreciate the response!

will the update ever come to GOG? I don't mind a wait I just don't want to think a version will be left as potentially inferior.

Well, looking how they also abandoned the SF2 and SF3 GoG versions here, there is not much hope.

1.54 is OK since there are no game breaking bugs, and all quests can be finished. The issue is with the AI. The only way to beat half of the maps in the original game is to clear the enemy spawn points with your hero first. You then build dozens of towers in their base to farm the xp. If you activate the rune monuments as soon as you start the map like the devs intended, the AI goes berserk and overwhelms you with waves upon waves of enemies.

As far as I understand this issue is still not fixed in 1.61 which is disappointing.

The other major issue is there are way too many magic schools specializations. The majority of spells are useless and they are hard to come by with pure luck determining drop rates. If you decide to play as a pure mage you may not be able to max out your spells. The system is broken and needs to be revamped. A remaster would be better than patching the game as is.

Having played SpellForce to the point where I can complete the game in my sleep, once you learn the cheese strategies, I find there is no other way to play the game. And personally I prefer going mage, simply for the added challenge.

To take the second point of contention first, here is a top tip (not saying this is good gameplay or balancing, just saying how to work around it): quick-save BEFORE opening any chest. If it only contains items, it doesn't matter, but if it contains a spell at a level you want but is the wrong spell, quick-load the game and open the chest again. The loot spells - and only the spells - are random. Only exception are the level 12 "ultimate" spells (such as Invulnerability, Suicide Death and Blizzard). Those are static, and can only be obtained at set places.

And it gets worse as you get higher and higher in levels, as the spells are level-based as well, and there becomes more of them. I think I have quick-loaded a save some 30 times to get the spell I wanted. Quite...tedious at times, I have to say. Still, while a figher or warrior is completely broken early game, the mages owns the late game. Fun fact: Hollow or Aura of Light (Boon spells against Undead) also works against Blades.

As for the first part, I partially agree. Though I learned quite quickly to at least explore the map close to the monuments before activating any of them. I recommend scouting in an expanding circle so you know where resources, and more importantly, where the enemies are. Then you set your avatar to patrol between the entrances while you build up your base.

I just finished Order of Dawn on Steam with beta branch version 1.61.11213 and the big advantage over 1.54 is that it works at 4K resolution out of the box. Health bars are where they should be together with perfectly readable text and interface. On a 7800x3D + RTX 4070 the game runs perfect with max settings. Didn't encounter any bugs but there are still a log of duplicate quest items and such that could've been fixed.

It's unfortunate that games on gog are left behind like this. It's not the first example where old games on Steam receive better support, Star Wars Empire at War is another example where the Steam version is superior.

Steam has sadly many disadvantages. For example always online connection because of the steam client or not letting any game run on any OS older then Win 10 (and in the future Win 11).

Also 1.61 has many bugs when it comes to memory management and campaign deadlocks/crashes. Its a different version then GoG for sure, but not a better one. For all the other issues, we have fixes and mods: https://forum.spellforce.info/index.php

This is why I hate Steam with a passion more fiery than a Barga Gor eruption.

I wanted to do a quick test in a specific game yesterday, with a new gamepad controller I had just bought, but I couldn't even launch the game before a mandatory Steam game client update had finished. Updates that CANNOT be disabled!

I buy my games on GoG, thank you very much. I buy the games, I download the games (I want to keep on my home server), I install the games, and I play the games. No fuss, no pesky game clients (though I think CDPR - yes, I know they own this platform - tried pushing GoG Galaxy a bit too hard with Cyberpunk 2077).

I think Crysis is the only game where I had to resort back to my pirated version, as the GoG-version kept crashing randomly.

As for the GoG-version of SpellForce, it works fine. A few tweaks here, some modding there (of course I never made notes, to make sure I can never repeat everything if I need to reinstall...) and it's great!

KUDOS for still posting here, Unreal_NeoX! <3

I haven't played SpellForce (exclusively the first trilogy) in a long while, and that bothers me. The game mechanics has its quirks and the balancing leaves a lot to be desired, but I find the gameplay and soundtrack close to perfection for my taste.

P.s.
As for Windows 11, I will rather put my WIndows 10 machines in a malicious botnet than downgrading to that beta OS!
Windows 10 may be end of life soon, but I am sticking to it. Windows 11 needs another couple of years before it's close to ready for mass-rollout.

No crashes for me while playing the first campaign Order of Dawn. Was level 30 with all quests completed and game time around 55 hours.

I will start Breath of Winter soon, finished it once maybe 20 years ago and can't remember much. You get a lot of value for your money no matter where you buy it. I have on both Steam and GOG.

There's a certain charm to this game; the ambient sounds and music are a strong point with Stoneblade Mountain as my favorite track. The main plot is quite disappointing and loses steam along the way but clearing out the maps and doing the side quests is fun. Graphics have not aged so badly either, but I prefer older games so might be biased about that. The paladins running around with flaming swords at dusk is still quite impressive.

Just make sure that your character does not go beyond level 30. If you get to level 31 (which is very much possible if you max grind XP - I have reached level 34), that character cannot be imported to Shadow of The Phoenix without the use of a character editor (Artmoney) to reduce the level back to 30.

Also, prepare for a bigger challenge in Breath of Winter compared to Order of Dawn. :)
I was quite confident when I first tried it, and I got my ice mage ass handed to me. My last words when I went into the fray was the famous "I got this!"

P.s.
I didn't get it. Not until I had farmed some more, gained some levels (and mostly more mana) and returned later in the game with stronger rune heroes. Looking at you, "secret" monster spawns outside of Tirganach!

P.p.s.
Did you get Amra's armour and greaves? And the Shadowpulse armour? The latter is so overpowered, it's usable right to the end of The Shadow of The Phoenix.