Eador: Masters of the Broken World Review
-
Category: ReviewsHits: 21398
Article Index
Page 3 of 5
You will also need to spend some time exploring your held Provinces with your hired heroes, as doing so will help increase Province income, will lead to combat that will level up your heroes and units faster, and could provide you special bonuses, like uncovering a hidden grove full of treasure, or a gem mine. You can even uncover quests to do for the NPCs living in a given Province, which will then let you form an alliance with that group and even build their special units and buildings in your Province. Once you have a Province captured, you'll be able to hire guards for it and build buildings on it, augmenting its income and capabilities (faster movement speed through it, greater population growth, etc.); of course, picking the right investments for each Province is important, and you can easily waste your money by not taking advantage of what a Province has to offer you. What's more, for each turn that passes, you'll have to deal with random events that can occur. Often these events are related to your previous actions on a Shard. If you receive news of necromancers raising corpses in a Province's cemetery, for example, you will have the choice to deal with it in a number of ways (usually paying gold or gems for various services), or simply ignoring it. It doesn't stop here, though. Just because you paid to have the problem solved doesn't mean it will be solved - those adventurers you hired could run away with your money, for instance, requiring you to them make another decision on how to deal with them. Furthermore, if you choose not to act on the threat of those necromancers, a few turns down the line you might receive word that they are amassing an undead army and waging war on the towns of your Province. These events are a ton of fun, have a lot of variety and unexpected twists and turns, and really make you feel like your choices matter.
If there is one complaint to make about the strategic side of the game, it's that it's quite slow-paced and can often come across as repetitive. The campaign length has been decreased in Eador: MotBW compared to Genesis, but because you start each Shard from zero, with the only progression coming from the higher-level units and buildings you gradually unlock, it's not an unfair complaint. It would have been nice to see even more unique modifiers given to Shards that result in different objectives - for example, you win for being the first to form an alliance with an NPC faction, or you have a limited number of turns to win.
Combat Gameplay
It's worth spending some time first talking about heroes and units in Eador: MotBW. Heroes come in four classes (Warrior, Scout, Wizard, Commander), and are valuable and very powerful units which involve themselves directly in combat - unlike the ones in Heroes of Might & Magic, who only cast spells and provide passive benefits to your troops. Heroes are required to conquer and explore the Provinces around the Shard, so at least one is needed from the beginning. Unlike Heroes of Might & Magic, however, the price of new heroes goes up with each one you buy, so you will never have 10 of them running around the map - usually 2-3 is enough. What's more, there are few non-combat activities to take part in, and the strength of your hero is much more closely tied to the strength of your army, which means that there is no need for "farming" heroes whose sole job is to pick up resources.
Both heroes and regular units level up over time. Experience is gained for combat, but you'll also get it for having your hero explore Provinces, which makes exploration that much more useful in the early game. With each level, a hero's attributes will go up randomly, and you'll also get to choose one of two skills to level up. These skills are specific to each type of hero, so Scouts will get skills that let them see farther on the Shard map, while Warriors will get bonus melee damage or movement speed. Standard units will similarly gain level-ups as they survive battles and kill enemies, as well as promotions, which are trade-offs that increase the unit's expenses but can make it much more powerful - though a single unit is rarely going to be a direct match for a hero.
The specific build of your hero can be further augmented by equipment, either purchased or found by defeating enemies, and it's even possible for a very powerful hero to forgo an army entirely, provided he is built he right way. Equipment does need to be periodically repaired, so this also puts a limit on how much you can go conquering and plundering in one session.
