Eador. Imperium: Video Overview Games

Is it possible to return the past, dress it in new clothes and do everything even better than it was? The developers of HD Remakes Game Classics are not tormented by such philosophical issues – they sincerely believe that the injection of new technologies can revive the glorious past and make it our bright real. And often mistaken ..And you will find here all the soldiers?

Beauty will not save the world

With a wonderful step-by-step fantasy strategy Eador It happened about the same. In 2009, this game created by the actual forces of one person, Alexey Bokolev, I became a local sensation in the genre – in its depth, versatility and opportunities, she laid on both blades of many competitors created by professional studios. Yes, I also intrigued an interesting system of random events forced to make difficult solutions.

True, for many, the game was too hardcore and old-fashioned. Scary-two-dimensional, with an overloaded interface, a plot campaign by 500 (!) hours and a separate astral plan, where we needed to capture the fragments of worlds as a demigod, listening to the philosophical dialogues about chaos and the time in spirit Planescape: Torment.

Ubiquitous “Sofklab”, Perfectly knowing about Russian folk love for similar strategies in the spirit HEROES OF MIGHT & MAGIC, Naturally, it quickly assessed which prospects this franchise opens, and initiated the development of a HD-remorse (well, or a continuation – call anything, the essence does not change). Alexey Bokulev worked on him with studios Unicorn Games And Snowbird Game Studios.

The game received a subtitle “Vladyka Worlds”, I left in 2013 and brought some expected amenities: normal learning, flexible setup of complexity, the ability to persist more often, more visual and ergonomic interface. The campaign has become concisely and more dynamic, squeezing about 30 hours, and the graphics – three-dimensional and quite modern. Plus a multiplayer appeared.

True, new troubles have come with new technologies – numerous technical flats, bugs, departures, hangs, unreliable quests, shot down scripts and other reasons for chubby patches. This is despite the fact that visually “Vladyka Worlds” Anyway gave way Disciples III And MIGHT & MAGIC: HEROES VI, And the interface even in an updated version was able to drive into depression.With humor, authors are fine!

Heroes of the Roman Empire and Magic

As a result, I updated the game for a long time, in parallel constantly adjusting the balance: when you have dozens of buildings with alternative development options and more than a hundred “units”, to cope with it really not easy. And now it’s about the same story repeated with a large-scale addition “Eyador. Empire”.

The main idea is the appearance of the very empire, simulated in the image and similarity of Roman, that is, with legipulations, centurions, legionnaires, gladiator battles in the arena and other thematic joys. Many have immediately spoke that it is somewhat dissens with the classic fantasy-set game, but the developers of this particular novelty and sought, trying to diversify and refresh the passage.

In addition, there were four new heroes. The wizard is able to study spells without sitting a pants in libraries and magical academies, a personal is gaining an army from the corpses raised by him, legal immediately starts a card with “units” of the second level. And finally, the pilot is an analogue of a gnome engineer who is able to fly in a balloon in enemy provinces and arrange siege from the air (though, only from the tenth level).

For each of the heroes, its campaign is invented, and the final, for the empire, opens only after the three previous. Naturally, new “units” were added. Imperial warriors have the ability of “discipline”, reinforcing allies if they are on neighboring hexes, and barbarians (healer, a hunter, catcher, loving and others) are largely focused on distant battle.

Especially interesting turned winter fighters – white wolves, snow witches, frosty fursions and even frozen zombies. The game made the icy fragments of worlds, where the heroes can train such persistent to the cold fighters.

And B “Empire” Separate scenarios appeared, “sharpened” under different heroes and with different tasks. And introduced a new mechanic of patronage of Vladyk. Now we are not a demigod, but you yourself are in service from one of them. Accordingly, you can choose one of the four patrons, to build the temples dedicated to him, perform quests and save the favor of the Lord to carry out all sorts of useful rituals (siren spells) on a global map.Play on winter fragments with winter “units” especially interesting.

We wanted like better ..

All this really contributed to the usual gameplay and freshness, and a variety. Campaigns are divided into chapters, possess certain dynamics and tension and assume the implementation of various interconnected tasks. For example, in a branch for the title empire, you first need to accumulate certain resources, then suppress the uprising and repeat the invasion of the centaurs, then go through a special RPG card to the end and back (and the case happens in the desert) and finally defeat lich with his armies.

And the mechanics of patronage of Vladyk introduced a variety in the late stage of the game, made a strategy more variable and gave a new meaning of the sealing development of the temple quarter. With the help of special rituals, for example, you can break through the front or counterattack immediately after the defeat, halvening increasing income into the provinces on five moves and highly raise the mood there, but it is necessary to get a big penalty for the population growth (apparently, the remaining rejoices that it will be free). There is an option to even hit the enemy province of necrotic energy, destroying almost all living things there.

… and it turned out as always

But the game, I repeat, darken old sores. The interface (especially in the construction part) as it was and remains frankly overloaded, scare away and hardly worse in the genre. The picture also remained at about 2013, but the optimization has worsened. It slows down, especially in battles, periodically bugs and departures, unjustified freezes ..

With the increase in tactical cards, the fights became even more tensile and tightened – the fighters go slowly, periodically tightly stuck in textures. And besides, it is necessary to look for them for a long time in the alay of the cluster of trees and grass.

On the other hand, the authors for some reason have introduced restrictions on the number of moves in campaigns – tasks need to have time to perform for the allotted time. It makes it takes a broken head on the map, neglecting a thoughtful strategy, a study of provinces and visiting all interesting places. There are problems with the balance – “units” it became even more.The gnome pilot, on the idea of the authors, can perform the role of spy.
In general, how do you guess, patches flew to the game – they leave almost daily. So, after some time, the authors still removed the notorious limit on the number of moves in the campaigns. There was an opportunity to skip the animation of movement and attack, as well as include a simplified graphic view without all this vegetation, which dramatically increases the pace of battles. But there are still a lot of problems to solve – for example, I have a challenged Steam version for some reason, for some reason, I flew regularly, and earlier with GOG.COM worked much more stable.***
After that, they are not surprised why many believe that all these three-dimensional remakes, additions and continuation never surpassed the two-dimensional original and fan modifications. However, the game is bad, poorly develops, the authors do not lower the hands, something is constantly gaining, add and build big plans for the future. I hope sooner or later they will all work out – besides them, there are almost no one for such big step-by-step strategies in Russia.