Sovereignty tested and...

Sovereignty is a turn-based fantasy strategy game for the PC. It combines a kingdom management campaign game with a general's level tactical battle game.

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Petiloup
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2017 1:53 pm

Sovereignty tested and...

Post by Petiloup »

First of all, I played Wargames for 30+ years now so it's a second nature to understand what works or not in a game.

After a few disappointments buying some WW2 games I thought this might be better as an Heroic & Fantasy game. Can't really compare Ogres vs Elves as in history books and known mechanics.

First tried out with Jotland and was all over the map in 1 or 2 hours of game time. So I thought that faction was too strong and looked for something weaker.

Next was Cor Vilaad, and was doing mince meat with anyone deciding to attack me... same thing I thought... too strong as I just needed Crossbows and some support troops to destroy anything... at least in Tactical mode.

Went for Palemoor... and the Ghouls are just over the top. You just need to buy those and you beat the crap out of anyone as every time they kill and enemy they regenerate. So use 1 or 2 to maul a troop, then a weak Ghoul ready to die to finish it and poof... brand new.

Tried Sirucil... way too easy as well with the Elven Bows... very strong.

So I decided to do what seemed to be the weakest one, Cloudfells as surrounded by the Iron Barony. Tried to ally myself with it so to attack other nations but never worked so had to attack the Iron Barony. Too my time to build the 4 Giants, the Storm Giant, the 4 Mastodons, the 4 Eagles, and a few others. Took quite a bit of time with only one Agent to get the missing ingredients.

Then pile up enough money to sustain an attack long enough and declared war to the Iron Barony.

In tactical mode it's very easy to beat the AI as it moves all over the place with no real tactic and no sense of placing and using troops. So you can take troops mostly a few at a time and finish it off. The Eagles are amazing flying cavalry that can charge far and anywhere.

Once you annex a few more places then it get easier as making more cash. Once you take the Iron Barony capital then the Rebels are easy as pie as they don't move between places.

After that was just about moping up once enemy after the other annexing more land while avoiding to take the Capital not to upset everyone at the same time. Once strong enough then it's not much of a challenge for the simple reason as there is no real Grand Alliance deciding the counter the threat to all you become. So as long as you can stand your ground, accept peace and destroy one enemy at a time then it's just a question of time.

The game is beautiful and many great things to see like some special features in some territories but I don't see a lot of substance behind... and the game crashed all the time so better save after a difficult battle, before moving to the next turn or having done something that takes time so not to get frustrated by having to redo things all the time when it crashes.

Why no substance?

The moment you find the troops that are strong then just build those [unless there are Elite units limited at 4 or 1 unit which is a smart idea] but each nation seems to have troops that are very strong and some useless.

Doing buildings doesn't give you any sense of accomplishment. There is no ultimate goal and some buildings are useless.

Sirucil has the Elven bows, Palemoor the Ghouls, CloudFells the Goblins [ready the same turn as buying them so you can build hundreds in one turn if you have the cash and when they die you cash back... mindblowing], Cor Vilaad has the Heavy Crossbows and the Rock Priest [Healing during a battle is a great way to not loose troops in tactical mode] then the ballista are very strong as well, Jotland has healers as well and bows,...

Then use Tactical mode whenever the fight can be damaging in Auto and the AI is so bad that you can do a nice line with bows behind, let it come and crippled troops with arrows, move back, let them come again till you finish them off, if they don't attack then move forward in a nice formation while the AI has troops most of the time all over the place. I never lost a tactical battle... but the magic of the Heroes is also a very nice addition.

So at the end, a lot of great ideas, very nice graphics, you have experience for troops and choose different bonus, you have the main magic, can build buildings... but at the end it's just about getting the right troops and move forward. I myself never did build one Tower anywhere at any time. Towers are a nuisance but not a strong one and if you have ballista then those shoot at 7 hexes while the tower at 5... and the tower is useless.

What doesn't work?

- You need Finance to build towers and only a few factions has those resources. How does that make sense? but anyway as they are mostly useless on my sense not a problem.
- Some regions has building level 1 and level 3... so you can't build the level 3 as there is no level 2 buildings.
- You can't decide the path of your charge so troops ends up anywhere... but assuming war is hell that's a small issue.
- Disband troops is one by one... tedious.
- You can sell anything to anyone even if they have tons of it so to make money. I used this with Cloudfells sells stone and whatever to get Finance resource and cash and the AI takes it even if they have pile of those and if they don't like me. You can also do an offer and revise it after reading the note. You should do an offer and then it's accepted or refused and the turn is over. Give a few more agent to amend for this change and would be more challenging.
- Some faction have no ships but any troops can go on sea if you have an harbour... and they fight based on their characteristics... so I had Goblins destroying every ships coming... of course... make sense.
- You need fliers to attack the Valegorn Palatinate and I don't think every factions have flyers units in the game.
- The nations don't see the threat of you growing stronger while there is a power World Power tracking system so the AI should start to ally themselves against you once you reach a certain power level to try to overwhelm you. Would be more challenging.
- The Magic tree is fun but again not really useful, I ended not even bothering using it most of the time. The only time I saw a great spell was Troll Blood giving you 10 Healing stat permanently... until the game bugged and removed it to all troops of course... has it takes 3 turns to cast one... on 20 troops it's 60 turns so didn't bother doing it again.
- The game crashes... and crashes... and crashes some more... till you save manually all the time just in case.
- and I forget it doesn't run on all Graphic cards... for some reason.. which I never saw before unless game made for high performance cards but not even the problem here.

and the big thing that doesn't work... the AI sucks at tactical battle... it puts its troops all over the map with no cohesion, no tactics, no sense of moving troops, quite disappointing as I did know games doing this well 20 years ago and here it's fantasy and it's really crap.

Conclusion, beautiful game but if you are an experienced Wargamer then give it a pass, got it for a week now and didn't feel challenged at any one time.

Sad has I had good expectation for this game.
Breca
Gothic Labs
Gothic Labs
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Joined: Fri Mar 30, 2012 1:25 pm

Re: Sovereignty tested and...

Post by Breca »

We are developing an AI overhaul. This isn't tweaking the current AI, but redoing it from the ground-up. Think of it as Sovereignty Redone. Of note, each realm will have its own personality reflecting the underlying lore. This will be the biggest update since release. More to come...

Good hunting!

Breca
Petiloup
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2017 1:53 pm

Re: Sovereignty tested and...

Post by Petiloup »

Would love to see that, I really believe this game could be one of the best title out.

At the moment I would love to play but knowing I'll win after playing a dozen turns isn't challenging enough.
KarlXII
Senior Corporal - Ju 87G
Senior Corporal - Ju 87G
Posts: 80
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:42 am

Re: Sovereignty tested and...

Post by KarlXII »

Was there any overhaul of the A.I ? (Just bought the game and feel the tactical battles A.I is quite bad)
ErissN6
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
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Location: France

Re: Sovereignty tested and...

Post by ErissN6 »

One year and a half past, they said were at 50% of this overhaul. But at now we saw 5%.
KarlXII
Senior Corporal - Ju 87G
Senior Corporal - Ju 87G
Posts: 80
Joined: Mon Nov 19, 2007 9:42 am

Re: Sovereignty tested and...

Post by KarlXII »

Well, at least I bought it on sale. The game engine in itself is quite good but when multiplayer (especially hotseat) is lacking the A.I must be good. And since it isn´t it isn´t worth spending time on.
sIg3b
Master Sergeant - U-boat
Master Sergeant - U-boat
Posts: 523
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2013 2:43 pm

Re: Sovereignty tested and...

Post by sIg3b »

Looks like we can forget about this.

They either lack the resources for an AI overhaul or the goodwill or it´s impossible.
ErissN6
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
1st Lieutenant - Grenadier
Posts: 788
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2013 11:34 pm
Location: France

Re: Sovereignty tested and...

Post by ErissN6 »

KarlXII wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 7:48 pmThe game engine in itself is quite good
Yes, but there are still so many features to be tweaked, many texts, too much blocking bugs.
it isn´t worth spending time on.
It can be worth, if you are lucky not finding a too big bug.
Or it could be worth, as what was 'corrected' last in the AI was not completed so I find the game is worst now.

I still have hope for this game, even reason should told the contrary.
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