Eador: Masters of the Broken World Review
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The battles in Eador: MotBW take place on a hex grid map, but unlike the strategic Shard view, the hexes are much smaller and more numerous, similar to what you'll see in the Heroes of Might & Magic series. The specific terrain of each is somewhat randomly generated, but influenced by what type of Province you're in - if you are playing on a desert Province, you can expect anything from wide open flat ground, to jungles and oases in your way. The terrain features themselves have tactical considerations in battle that must be used to your full advantage if you want to succeed. Putting your units on hills, for instance, gives them a defense bonus and ranged attack bonus, while putting them in forests will shield them from the enemy's ranged attacks. One also has to take into account the morale and stamina of each unit - lose too much morale and your units will cower and flee, while if they run out of stamina then they won't be able to move or attack. Depending on the terrain, both of these can be exploited to your advantage - forcing an enemy army to march through a desert to reach you, for instance, could leave them exhausted and easy prey.
Last, your hero and your units will have various spells available to them. These spells often are enough to turn the tide of battle, when used effectively, and there are a wide variety of strategies open to you. One of my favorites was to build a mage hero and then unlock necromancy and summoning spells, allowing me to field huge armies of demons and zombies without having to pay the usual costs, but I could just as easily have focused on direct damage spells, or buffs and debuffs. Generally speaking the less direct route with magic is the most useful, however, so you can't simply rain fire and ice from the heavens on your enemies and expect to win without issue.
It goes almost without saying that Eador: MotBW is a slow-paced, difficult and fairly complicated game, even compared to other games of its type, and you will need to use every advantage you can get in order to succeed. You can get away with mistakes early on, but this is one of those games where mis-managing your economy, or not using the right spell at the right time, or not fielding enough heroes to deal with the threats you face, could make victory difficult if not impossible. But, when you learn how to most effectively fight your battles, and build your economy, it's extremely rewarding.
Presentation
The biggest change in Eador: MotBW over the original game boils down to presentation. The game's graphics have gone from being 2D sprites straight out of the mid-90s, to full, high-detail 3D polygonal models. For the most part, this is a positive change. While the original game's graphics had a lot of personality and charm, it's hard to deny that they still look dated, and the limited screen resolution was definitely a concern. Eador: MotBW is one of the best-looking strategy games I've seen recently, with gorgeous and lush landscapes, a watercolor art style that isn't too realistic but not too cartoony either, very accurate and dynamic lighting (with a full, albeit entirely cosmetic, day/night system), and some great spell effects and unit designs.
The game's soundtrack is also fantastic. While it's pretty much identical to the original game's, the music is full of memorable orchestral melodies that definitely take me back to the golden age of RPGs; the soundtrack alone is enough to get you through the slower parts of gameplay that can occur. It's a soundtrack I'd actually recommend listening to on its own, not just in the game itself, which is a rare thing to see these days. The sound effects themselves are less impressive - totally competent, but there's a distinct lack of any voice work or even voice samples for the human units on the battlefield.
