In our wonderful age, everything tends to be disposable. Disposable plates, disposable bags, almost disposable mobile phones and cars falling apart after the warranty has expired. And today I will show you a one-time strategy game.

Greetings, partners – this time we will bring to light an opus named Sorcerer Kings Rivals. Off we go.

The game in question was created by Stardock Entertainment. This is by no means the company’s first experience in creating strategic creations. Because before that, Galactic Civilizations series 3, as well as Fallen Enchantress, jumped out from under their ax. These works are quite famous among strategy lovers. And although gaming publications received them quite favorably, ordinary users perceived the creations of game makers rather coldly, hinting that Stardock was not really Entertainment at all.

The game in question, Sorcerer King Rivals, is an expansion of the original Sorcerer Kings. Let me make a reservation right away that I haven’t played the original game or any other fruits of Stardocka’s inspiration, so don’t expect any comparative analytics from me. I will, so to speak, share the fresh impressions of an outsider.
So, on the game’s website you can find quite a lot of information about the world in which all the action takes place. There is even a map, as well as a whole page dedicated to the plot. It looks like a responsible approach – the main thing is that it doesn’t turn out that all the steam has gone into the whistle, or rather into the plot.
So, how are things going with the literary part of the game?.

That’s what you are reindeer Elemental.
The world where events unfold, in which we are invited to participate, is immediately trying to take the statuette for the most ridiculous name. For it is called Elemental. The Elemental World confidently moved along the path trodden by the strong feet of hundreds of other game worlds. As you can understand, this path leads to the inevitable mess. Because, as usual, everything is not very positive. In general, once upon a time the world of Elemental was experiencing a period of prosperity, it was saturated with magic, the people who lived in it created great kingdoms and powerful artifacts. And then oil fell to twenty per barrel. Kidding. And then, out of nowhere, the titans appeared, who immediately pinned all the people to their fingernails, and one particularly evil one named Kurgen even took all the magic of the world and imprisoned it in shards, scattered here and there. For a long time, people endured this chaos, but then they rallied and, with the help of other titans, threw Kurgen the worst, after which he rested in God, leaving behind only a race of fallen. Which appeared as a result of the bad influence of the vile titanium on those around him.

The video for the game doesn’t say who it is, but we’ll assume it’s Kurgen
And when it seemed that everything was starting to get better, the fallen acquired a particularly dangerous sorceress, who again put the long-suffering world of Elemental in ruins. As a result, history has come to a second turn. The most talented heroes of people united to throw her, but everything went wrong for them, until one of the heroes, the magician Mirdot, found the brutally powerful artifact “Death of Kurgen”, with the help of which the vile witch got kerdyk. It would seem that now everything is already – but even here it’s not. For the artifact also turned out to be cunningly invented as the ring of one well-known hobbit and began to fuck up poor Mirdot’s brain, after which he began to watch Malysheva’s show, won the season of the Battle of Psychics and finally went crazy, declaring himself the Wizard King. And as is customary among tough tyrants, he once again began to spread rot on the surrounding population who had not yet recovered from the fight against the witch. Now he is the main one in Elemental, he terrifies everyone, carries out unconstitutional reforms and even decided to destroy all the shards in which all the magic has been stored since the time of the Titans. In general, the standard plot of fantasy games, come out! We recognized you.

But this is definitely https://luxebetcasino.co.uk/ Sorcerer King
The game itself offers us a couple of gameplay modes. Namely a simple game and company. I decided to start straight away like an adult and chose a company. After which you are offered races to choose from: gnomes, liches, artisans, protective elves, a couple of human armies, magicians and priestesses. Races differ in the initial set of troops, magic and unique abilities. And of course, a picture. Plus they can be customized. They also let you choose a map, difficulty, opponents, and starting bonus. But in general, I can’t say that the piano settings are rich. So – the required minimum for a candidate.
I chose an army of artisans, who are unclear whether they are people or gnomes.

Not the widest selection
You start with standard positions for each 4 strategies. You have a city and an army with a hero. Plus, there is a magic shard sticking out next to the city, which you are immediately invited to start using. Looking ahead right away, I’ll say that Sorcerer king surprised me in that the company in it is not a chain of small missions. Which we are used to, for example, in Heroes. Is this a normal place on a huge map?. What then is the difference from the simple game mode I still don’t understand. But let’s get back to the story.

Classic start: City 1 piece. Hero 1 piece.
How are things going with the development of cities in particular and the economic model in general?? And here everything is frankly clean, but poor. Cities, as befits self-respecting settlements in any turn-based strategy, grow in levels and you can build anything in them. The cities themselves can be built not just anywhere, but in special places on the map, which are marked with something like a field with sprouts. Cities are built, as in the classics, by special units, which here are called not settlers, but pioneers. In addition to cities, pioneers can also build outposts, which are needed to capture places with resources and new shards, which become yours only if they are on your territory. And for this to happen, you need to build an outpost that creates a piece of your land around itself. The migrants don’t know anything else. There are no workers in the game, roads are built either using magic or automatically. When you have built an outpost or city, it is quickly connected by road to the rest of your kingdom, which is convenient. When a city receives a new level, it expands with the area around it, after which you can choose a cell on which the city will expand in width.

Here we will have Butovo.
Three types of resources are possible on the cells: production, food and a magical resource, which is needed so that magic spells can be cast on the city, but more on that later. Otherwise, city management is extremely primitive. You can build buildings in it and that’s it. There is no money in the game, so if you want to rush production, then for God’s sake – there is magic for this. Among the resources available to the player, there is also leadership, which is needed to maintain troops and is produced in special buildings. To produce certain types of troops, you need crystals and iron, and this is where the description of the economy can end. The shards you capture, as well as some buildings in cities, produce magic for which spells are researched. Also, as your successful actions, you yourself as a ruler accumulate experience, which gives you levels and opens up new skills that give you all sorts of useful things: access to new types of weapons and armor, expanding the maximum size of your armies or increasing loot after battles.

Screen for developing you as a person
In general, the economic system leaves an extremely budgetary impression – like a cafe at a village station.

Modest city management screen
Since the world of Elemental itself is imbued with magic, like Russian football with pain and suffering, it is clear that magic plays an important role in the game. In order to be able to use magic, you have two pools: a pool of mana, generated by the shards you captured, and a pool of knowledge, which is needed to learn new spells and is replenished by city buildings. Spells in the game are a partial replacement for science. But only partial. They are divided into three types: combat, global and improvements. The first ones are used in battles and are standard fireballs and other carnival paraphernalia. Interestingly, combat spells have a cooldown time, so hitting enemies two turns in a row with the same magic will not work. Well, you can cast once per turn. Global spells and no brainer, are cast on the global map. For example, you can create a road, magic your ship, or move your army to any cell owned by the player. The last spell generally becomes indispensable at the end of the game because enemies are coming from all corners and mobility becomes very critical for the defense of native corn. Well, the third type is improvements. For example, you can increase production in the city. True, for this, firstly, mana is spent every turn, and secondly, for this, the city must have a special resource that allows you to hang improvements on it. You can also attach magical bonuses to your units. In addition to standard learnable spells, the game also has one-time scrolls – all according to the classics.

Expanding our magical knowledge.
Manipulating your troops is generally the biggest part of the game. At the beginning, as I said, you have a hero with a couple of initial units of troops. Over time, new types of troops are obtained with the construction of new buildings in cities – the game does not reinvent the wheel here. You don’t need a hero to create an army – you can do without one. Although it is clear that with a hero it is usually more fun and cheerful, since he is the only one who can receive skills with levels that give him a bunch of different opportunities: enhanced attacks, buffs of his troops, summoning all sorts of dragons, and so on. The rest of the troops also receive levels, but they do not receive skills, they only increase in health and other important parameters. After battles, you receive different resources from which you can craft a variety of gear. Recipes for gear are also either obtained in battles or obtained as your faction grows or buildings are built in cities. You can give weapons and armor to any unit. It’s true, what’s interesting is that a squad of war wolves can be dressed up in helmets and chain mail, but a squad of spearmen cannot be given bows. Equipment greatly affects the combat effectiveness of your guys, so it’s better not to delay its production and distribution. In addition to the actual means of protection and destruction, you can craft, for example, scrolls or a one-time regimental camp, the use of which deprives the army of the remaining action points, but restores its health.

Crafting and equipment screen – judging by it, Stardock is looking for a designer
Troops are replenished both in the usual regular way – by producing them in cities, and by completing small quests. The fact is that various objects such as markets, taverns, magic towers, and so on are scattered here and there on the map. When you get into them, you are given a small quest, usually solved right there on the spot. The quest most often consists of a gang of robbers, a wild magician’s apprentice or a brutal fishmonger causing a stir in the area and you can either kill him or lecture him and recruit him into your troops. As a result, he joins you. I can’t say that fishmongers make the best fighters, but the possibility is fun. Plus there are chests with goodies scattered around the map, all sorts of markets where you can buy all sorts of magic items, and so on. So you can’t blame the global map for being poor.

…And probably also an artist.
Combat in the game is normal, turn-based. Units attack each other with both simple attacks and special attacks. There is nothing supernatural in the combat – the only feature that can be remembered is that if your units surrounded the enemy, then when attacking any of them, all his comrades will help him. That is, the more of your guys there are around the enemy, the stronger the attack. Well, as I already said, you can use magic, but you won’t have much fun. Over time, the battalion commander begins to get bored and you begin to choose automatic battle, fortunately there is such an option. Automatic combat is quite sane, so you can safely rely on it. Well, the game doesn’t spoil us with any bells and whistles like 3D terrain. There is also a siege of cities, but it differs from an ordinary battalion commander in absolutely nothing – there are not even walls.

There is a dragon in the game. He’s sad because he’s poorly animated
The gameplay itself is based on the fact that at the beginning your faction is very weak, it sits in the corner of the map and tries not to attract the attention of the Wizard King, who periodically condescends to you and asks if you need anything. If you take handouts from the king, this increases his influence points. When the number of points reaches a critical level, that’s it: your opponent becomes God and the polymers are ruined. Also, influence points increase if, when completing small quests that are found on the map, you make dumb choices like running away from a fight or stealing something instead of giving it to the owner. Like go over to the dark side of the force. On the other hand, making the right choices and casting the right spells increases your influence points and you, too, can become a God by showing your competitors a famous place. Over time, when you begin to gain power, the boss begins to suspect that you are not loyal to him at all and begins to send his charges against you, of whom you will have to kill a fair number before you manage to get to the castle where the villain sits in order to present your claims to him.

Mirdot! Come out!
Besides you, there are other races on the map that can either support you in your campaign against world evil, or stick a knife in your back, tempted by a barrel of jam and a box of cookies.
What it looks like. Well, here’s the real problem. Men take off their hats and shake their heads sadly, and women do not hide their tears and sob loudly, blowing their noses into their hem. If you thought from the pictures and previews of the game that the graphics were nice, then you should know that it seemed to you. At the same time, it’s not bad, no, it’s just budget. This is expressed in everything: in the quality of models, in their quantity, or, for example, in the fact that even cities of different factions look the same. Of course, I understand that graphics are basically not the main thing for strategies, but remembering at least the recent Master Of Orion, you understand that everything here is very, very sad.

Summing up. Sorcerer King Rivals resembles goods from Aliexpress. It seems that all the stated possibilities are there. Here you will find different factions, quests, turn-based combat, urban development, and a magical world. But in reality the quests are the same, the battalion commander gets bored after half an hour, crafting things also soon becomes boring. The role-playing system that the developers have woven into the gameplay is as primitive as TNT programs. It feels like they saved even in small things – for example, all races have the same city names. The graphics are so budget-friendly that they look like guards. And it seems like when you play for the first time the main quality of a strategic game is: “Now I’ll make another move.”. Oh my god, an hour has already passed” – present. But the second: “Oh, I beat the game, I need to replay it and try new tactics.”!”. Not at all. The economy is in a nursery state, all that can be said about diplomacy is that it exists. It’s a pity, there seem to be some interesting features, but they’re all kind of unfinished. The last nail in the lid is the lack of multiplayer. Well, okay, we’ll wait for the sixth civilization – fortunately there won’t be long left..