Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War (2018)

Playtime: 9h10m

Intro

Gladius is a turn-based strategy game in which you build/upgrade units and explore a map to find things to kill with them.

Review

This game is so shallow it feels unfinished. It's billed as a 4X but lacks any depth in faction development and doesn't have diplomacy. It's a TBS with very limited tactical options. It's a 40K game but feels so generic it just feels like a reskin.

I really don't get who this is for? People who just want 40K things to fight each other are better off playing Dawn of War. People who like tactical battles can do infinitely better with the Age of Wonders or XCom series. People who like 4X will find this shallow and will just want to reinstall Endless Space/Legend.

Here you just crawl across the map, point units at enemies (there's no other interactions) and they play a brief attack animation. That's it. Balance is terrible too with Necrons eating Imperial Guard for breakfast, and fauna randomly attacking you. Another interesting concept wasted.

I like 4X. I like 40K (well, some of it). I don't really care for this so far. It also brings up a question: Where's the line between 4X and Turn-Based Strategy?

This game claims to be a 4X but has no diplomacy, no normal alt-win conditions aside from destroying all enemies, very limited exploration (you only find enemies and buildings that give resources when controlled) and very simple building mechanics. There's a research tree but most of it unlocks units and their abilities, in part due to the limited amount of features.

You end up with a game with simplistic combat barely above the level of Civilization and bare-bones other gameplay elements that compare poorly to even just a TBS like HOMM3. It's the worst of both worlds.

I dont really like 4X but was curiosu about this. The game has no campaign so it feel kind of lame. Also nautral mobs/wildlife dont really seem neutral, they tend to gang up on you and the randomness of what is close to you can be really bad. Between the mind controlling wildlife, centipede things (the spawn in mobs due to monster generators) and the lord of skulls who will appear at just the right time, there's a good chance you'll go from feeling stable to getting wiped (or set back a good 150 turns)

Other than that it resembles my brief foray into 4X games. You have research paths and it's a slow drawn out game of patience featuring some rather large maps.