A good sequel in most regards. As far as gameplay is concerned it's superior in every way. But Dishonored was never just about it. The story, world building, atmosphere, characters, they were just as important and are sadly significantly worse in this one (it's straight way down from the original really). I especially hate what they do with Outsider. He starts out as unknowable, detached, berly interested in mortal affairs. Very powerful and interferring just because of boredom. Meanwhile here he is being judgy about morality and giving you time reversing powers. Makes no sense at all.
The core of the game is very much similar to Warhammer 40k Gladius. Combat mechanics are practically the same - there have been some rebalancing and renaming but nothing that would make it unfamiliar to Gladius veteran. Same with economy, if you understand Astra Militarum eco from Gladius you understand this one (though there are some late game resources present). So, what is actually new? For one, Diplomacy. In Gladius you had predefained teams, and that was that. Here while you start at war with everyone, you can make peace, exchange maps, estabilish trade, make alliances, and other options. It's not very complicated, but it works well with nice and flavourfull conversations that bring characters to life. Big Plus is ability to coordinate with your allies - you mark tile(s) of interest and the allied AI will concentrate its forces in the region, engaging any enemies. It's a bit too easy to exploit and buggy right now, AI can travel half a map to reach the marker you put somewhere at game start and loose its cities due to it, but it's still a plus - an AI ally that is actually usefull is a rare thing indeed. Alternative Victory routes have also arrived. In Gladius you could only do one thing - kill em all! Here you have two alternatives. The first is alliance victory, if every player alive is allied to every other player you all win as a team. The other way of victory was heavily inspired by Stellaris, namely the 'war in heaven'. You see, in every game of ZEPHON there are two unplayable AI factions - the Zephon (AI Machine Spirit fusion) and Archonate (Aliens high on Eldritch weed). If no player wins the game till late game (turn 100+ on standard speed) they will get few very strong units and every player will get an event forcing them to either side with one of the forces or stand defiantly alone against both. I like the concept in general and its nice you can turn it off completely. Though right now it's not done to my liking. As it stands you can choose wich faction to side with no matter what you did all game, and from the few games I reached the late game in it's not a hard choice. Almost always one of them will be wiped off the map and the other will have few AI underlings. You can choose to go independent if you want (and it can be quiet neat), but if victory is all that matters then it's as simple as choosing a winning team (even if you spend your entire game up to that point fighting them). Another new thing are mutators. You unlock them by winning the game with different leaders - something I fully support - it encourages people to try everything. You can make it so that the gamemap is explored from turn 1, units loose HP if outside their base and plenty of other options. Very neat in short, though I suspect AI might not be programed to handle all of them - i had few weird games involving mutators. I won't speak much about story since I don't want to spoil it. Suffice to say it's pretty bleak weird postapo/alien invasion/eldritch horror story. You can see WH40k inspiration at every step, as well as Beksiński's art. The Aliens and Voice take plenty from various Eldritch Horror stories. If you enjoy those type of stories then you'll most likely enjoy this, it's quiet good and original. I tend not to be impressed by graphics&sound in games and this one is no different. While few art pieces were quiet good (especially the intro) and some unit designs were inspired in general I don't have much to say either way. It's pleasant enough. We also have some nice QoL changes since gladius. Things like beeing able to easily see unit ranges, unequiping artifacts from heroes, better artifact market and so on. New quests are much more reasonable then old ones. Independent units have an actual modifier showing&explaining their behavoir, which could have only been guessed previously. All appreciated. Some old annoyances still pester me though. For one it's quiet hard to see cliffs and elevation - you can turn on a graphic option that make things perfectly clear, but it's quiet ugly frankly. Also the balance around cities is very much not to my liking. I feel like building new cities is punished too harshly. Even when I'm playing longer games as faction that can have many cities I berly build them. So, a straight up example **** improving on its predecessor, right? Well... There is one thing that is straight up worse than in Gladius. And it's quiet notable since that was one of its biggest strenghts - faction variety. In Gladius you had 4 factions on start, each with wholly different units, tech and even resources they used. Here you have de facto 3 factions (mechs, eldritch and humans) with their own unique units but using mostly the same resources and mechanics. While the 8 leaders modify things somewhat it's not the same. And I fear that moving forward it won't be much better - I don't see any gates open to introduce a 4th faction and leaders can only do so much. All in all a solid game.
The game is best described as a fusion between a wargame and 4X all in very hard sci-fi universe. From 4X's developer took overall concept, from wargames units, order of battle, logistics and more. Planet generation deserves special mention. It's very deep but relatively easy to grasp (as long as you check relevant info) and allows immense freedom in what planet you want to play on. Moon? Jungle full of aggressive aliens? Tiny planet with atmosphere dense and oxygen rich enough to populate it all with mega-fauna? Earth-like? Mars 2.0? All of that and more is possible. Any thing related to war is immensely deep. You can design tanks, units they appear in, and formations they belong in all while the commanders that lead them must be carefully chosen paying attention if their dozens diffrent statistics work well with the unit. And it's like that for everything - not only tanks but also aircraft, APC's, humble soldiers etc. In it I can find game's only real flaw: it is soo deep and complex that it's extremely hard to get into. I play a lot of hard strategy games but bounced off this game good 5 times before breaking the entry barrier. If you like wargames, 4X's and are able to withstand steep learning curve then it is a game for you.
If you want to play a wargame set in ancient/medieval times this is ideal game for you. In game you can replicate tactics used in history, play as Rome rising to glory and soo much more. If you ever dreamed of being an Alexander or Caesar, defeating enemies few times stronger thanks to your strategy, this game will be dream come true.
