Matrix Games has announced that they are now accepting beta sign ups for their upcoming turn-based fantasy strategy game, Sovereignty: Crown of Kings. Sovereignty is a grand strategy game that incorporates an intriguing mix of strategic management, tactical combat, trading, and diplomacy. They state that the purpose of this beta is to “explore Sovereignty before release, report any bugs, issues or findings back and contribute to a flawless release later this year.”
Just this past May we posted an article based on our visit to the Slitherine press conference. When asked, Sovereignty was described as a game primarily focused around war, though some scenarios may allow for other victory conditions. Whether or not there will be a lot of depth or strategic choices outside of warfare remains to be seen, but both the aesthetics and gameplay of Sovereignty certainly appear unique compared to other upcoming titles. I’m certainly curious to learn more, but unfortunately no official videos have been released thus far.
There are a few additional sources of info out there for those of you who are curious to learn more, most of which are accessible from their forums. Their forum contains spotlight articles on many of the factions. Also, while as I mentioned no official videos have been released thus far, there is a youtube video about the game that was taken during the annual conference this past May.
If you’re interested in signing up for the upcoming beta, you can do so over here. You will need to create a Slitherine user account to do so if you don’t have one already.
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What’s the combat look like? The map presentation definitely intrigues me. I’m curious about this tactical combat though.
Combat is only shown at the very end of the video presentation unfortunately. It appears all battles that don’t involve a hero will be automated.
Tactical battles with a hero will be hex based with 2d representations of the unit portraits representing the units. The battlefield looks like it will accurately represent where the battle is taking place on the map. Beyond that I don’t know that much about the intracies of combat myself. There will be some spells and special abilities.
I signed up for the beta the first day. Really want to try this one out!
Signed up. Probably a mediocre game but nothing to lose.
After watching the video….
It looks like a detailed and in-depth strategy game with many options and decision making points. A very good thing. Visually it reminds me a LOT of Paradox’s EU series which can only be a positive comparison.
It seems like both the strategic AND tactical combat layers are turn-based which is a *very* good thing. No frantic click-fest when you really want to be thinking and pondering your next move.
Unfortunately there seem to also be a few negatives.
– It seems like the map is fixed, without the possibility for random map generation. Strike one.
– I’m not very excited about the fact that only armies which contain heroes can be involved in player-controlled tactical battles. Sounds like a lot of action will be missed to auto-resolve whether the player likes it or not.
– Generic fantasy trope with done-to-death elves, dwarves and orcs. Meh, might be bearable if done properly.
Either way it will be worth keeping an eye on this one and looking forward to a good review when the time comes.
Yeah I like the look of this game.
“Play a Battle Card at a key moment to swing the tide of battle.”
Alright, if this is anything like Endless Space, someone’s getting slapped.
Agreed! Let’s not forget how well that worked out for THAT game….
Oh the potential it had.
I’m curious, but non-optimistic about this one.
Same boat man, sounds great on paper.
It looks like it might be more along the lines of Ground Pounders, where you can play cards to get an advantage in certain situations, but for the most part you’re still moving individual units around on a tactical map.
Whereas Endless Space was like “Okay, pick three cards – it’ll be easy, since there aren’t many! – and we’ll fight the battle on our own”. Now, I can see how the designers wanted battles with a little more user input than GalCiv’s “Meh, watch a movie” approach, but without all the hassle of a full MOO2 tactical deal. But this particular system wasn’t very interesting or intuitive.
Ah yeah, I need to get back into GP, I played a VERY early version that didn’t even have a tutorial, and have heard it’s come quite a ways since. :) Thanks for the reminder!
No problem… and yeah, Ground Pounders has come a ways. When I first tried it, it had a bug in the tutorial that prevented me from getting any farther, but they fixed that, as well. Actually, that was a while ago, too – I think I need to go back and try it again myself!
I know a lot of people were outraged by how Sword of the Stars 2 turned out (and rightly so!), but some of Kerberos’s other games – like this one and particularly The Pit – have redeemed them somewhat.
I didn’t think that SOTS 2 ended up horrible. Its just some of the bizarre design decisions that made it very disappointing although it has several good points too, particularly the tactical combat.
I haven’t played GP yet. I played the Pit and it wasn’t really my cup of tea. I’m looking forward to the release of GP and reading some reviews, hopefully Kerb wont end up ruining an otherwise interesting concept again with terrible game design that makes you ask the question “wtf were they thinking?”.
I will check it out once its done, assuming that it will still be on the radar by the time it releases.
Looks like ass.
As much as I welcome new games. I like to see AAA+ games of this genre and not just a nerd spreadsheet effort with lazy graphical coding or poor gaming concepts that could lift the replayability
And here I thought Space Sector was all about nerdism and spreadsheets :/
Not sure about others but for me its about fun, immersive gameplay. Some of the best games out there accomplish that with the aid of spreadsheets. Whether this one does or not is yet to be revealed.
But Mr Wave already said it’s gonna be drek. He wouldn’t lie…ON THE INTERNET, or would he?
Mr Wave never lies. I have an uncanny knack for predicting sub par games. X-Rebirth and Legend of Pegasus being something I could see bomb from a mile away.
Well you don’t really need amazing predictive powers since *most* recent strategy games have been disappointing or sub-par. Its like predicting that there will be some clouds in the sky tomorrow. You might end up being wrong, but it’s pretty unlikely.
I’m still going to approach this one with an open mind though and hope for the best. All these devs will have to come up with a masterpiece eventually…… I hope.