Sorcerer King

« Tried and true mechanics combine with flexible customization and an interesting asymmetric challenge to create a fun, challenging game. Worth playing for both newcomers and fantasy TBS veterans alike. A dash of humor and sense of progress make the time fly by. »

« [A] triumph in the genre. »

« With this new fantasy themed title, and the previous science fiction themed Galactic Civilizations III Stardock has managed to corner the market when it comes to turn-based strategy, delivering a solid mix of both classic and innovative mechanics. »

« Sorcerer King offers a nice strategic balance, and the feeling of carving a swath through a landscape already dominated by your enemy gives the game a fun, challenging feel. »

« Stardock hits it out of the park with Sorcerer King. Turn-based strategy at its finest. »

« Sorcerer King is a game that should appeal to both fans of 4X and turn-based strategy games, and those with an open mind looking to experience something new in the genre. It can take a while to get to grips with everything it has to offer, in particular the doomsday scenario, but it pulls through with aplomb and should keep players coming back for more. »

« Sorcerer King casts a spell on you and keeps you playing. »

« With the sorcerer king as antagonist you are taunted as well as challenged from the very beginning. And while this is a neat creative impulse, the art design, AI and diplomacy options leave hold the concept back. »

« A pale and cut reincarnation of Fallen Enchantress. Doesn't worth to play, not speaking to buy. Previous commentators already said that - no control over other races(you play humans all the time), no custom units, and idiotic crafting system. Such a disappointment Play warlock 2 better, or good old FE »

« I dont understand why this game was made. This is basically a phone version of Fallen Enchantress. They cut half of the features from Fallen Enchantress (cant control races, make your own race, create units, etc) and they added absolutely nothing new aside from some items here and there while also cutting others. Graphics are not improved in any way. AI is not improved. Story is an afterthought (though even the old games are weak in story). There are fewer heroes now which is fine but makes the start and mid-game very slow. That is basically all there is to say about this game. It almost feels like something from the SNES era. Why they decided to go down this route is beyond me but this hurt the franchise reputation. »

« Brilliant. It's as if they took Fallen Enchantress and fixed everything that was wrong with it. The UI makes MUCH more sense, it's intuitive now. Crafting is fun. The doomsday clock adds excitement to lengthy campaign games. The map looks better now. No bugs or crashes after hours of play. Finally the tactical maps are much more fun. They look better and play better. I'm recommending this one to my friends. If you like fantasy strategy games, do yourself a favour and try this one. I notice there's a few very negative reviews out there - it might be that some people are still "punishing" **** for the buggy mess they released last time. It's been known to happen before. Keep an open mind, and try this for yourself. It's currently my favorite strategy game. »

« I saw 3 minutes of this and knew exactly what this is. Its a redo of Fallen Enchantress because the moron that runs **** is incapable of hiring anyone that is creative or knows anything about AI. Shame on you **** and my vow to keep you out of my wallet forever more still stands strong! »

« This game is fantastic. Learning how to play, and surviving under the pressure of sorcerer king is a different kind of fun at first place. The quests have humors, and the choices are tricky. I like the part that the troops can only get stronger by surviving. Thanks. »

« A fantasy based 4x by the guys that made Sins of a Solar Empire? (or at least so i think they are those guys) - that got me interested.... . The first thought of course is ... how can it compere with such heavy weights like civilization? ... The answer is... it can't - at least form my pov. But to be fair ... maybe it does not need to. It is small(er) scale - and does not feel like it requires 10+ hours to complete ( fyi, i never ever managed to actually FINISH a marathon setting on civilization 5 on a large map ). This game has hero customization and leveling, it has crafting, it has tactical combat, special abilities, strategic spells, tactical spells, world terra-forming and so much. - Not all those features are fully fleshed out though - so it sometimes feels like they took the best of other classic strategical games and smashed it into one. The result is well done ... but not perfect. All in all - the game feels a bit like a mixture between Disciples 2 and HoMM. Good tactical AI - but only adequate/average strategical AI. OKish diplomatic AI ... but i have yet to find any 4x that offers good diplomacy anyway. The AI uses special abilities mercilessly - and .. in most cases pretty well. The game is more for the micro army manager - than a grand scale strategist; with supply points encouraging small and few roaming parties rather than vast armies. While on the strategical map - the AI behaves a little to tame instead of exploiting obvious weaknesses in the players design ( like hardly - if at all defended cities ), it does a ( mostly ) good job in combat - targetting high DPS but low HP second line casters etc. - it also does not cheat - as in .. ignoring a unit that was cast invulnerability on even if its priority is still highest ( meaning - it keeps attacking it as if the spell had been unknown or invisible .. not so sure if that is the case if playing vs. another human ... if the opponent can actually see the spells casted by the other side - then the AI might just be dumb ... but it does feel "human like" in a so called "double-blind" setup ) Now - there are some weaknesses about the game that come with the load of features offered. While city-building feels well done, the options are few - and there is no pathing ( like disciples 2 ) where you have to make a choice of units or rewards - excluding the other path options. So my cities turned out to be clones - which made building the city a rather dull affair. One of my main concerns is the lack of unit variety. There is but the utmost standard units available ... and that is it. Some of them come in unique dresses ( like named ) but all in all - the units variety is lacking hugely. - And with it the tactical variety. There is a lack of ranged fighters - which makes melee combat king ( at least for me it did ) - with tactical grids usually being fairly small compared to the movement speed of units. ( compared to HoMM or even Armored Princess or similar games ) There is also a lack of terrain effects. It seems to matter little if anything if i am fighting on mountainous terrain, a beach, forest or grassland. It may have been nice to see certain units doing better on one or another terrain ( like raiders doing better on flat terrain, while beast doing better in mountainous or so... ) It is likely that units may be delivered via DLC though - or modding. Then there is the visual presentation. Now i will compare it to Sins of a Solar Empire - sort of. The style is different of course - being much more cartoonish than the semi-realistic look of Sins. However - model quality as well as world design is not a strong point of Sorcerer King. On the other hand - animation quality is sufficient. The whole doomsday counter is nice, too ... but it may be a little repetative ( much like Beyond Earth ) as it does not quite allow the same freedom as Civilization. ( Also - there are not enough maps included as of now ... especially not enough larger ones ) So - right now - i would give the game a 7/10 - placing it above average - but not close to 4x giants like Civilization. Replayability and design currently keeps it back. Modding and expanding on the formula may catapult it to a much higher rating though. It is a game for a 4x player that likes the tactical management more than the epic grand scale of hundreds of cities and thousands of troops. »

« I've found the game very interesting. It's a mix of 4X and RPG and you're fighting an enemy much bigger than you. It feels unfair in a way, but the Sorcerer king doesn't start all in against you. The most appealing concept included for me is the crafting system, creating equipment, potions and scrolls can change the approach to battles that would otherwise be impossible. And the enchantments give a lot of versatility, you can improve stats or you can give your units the possiblity to use special abilities. There's a fun balance found on research, at least in the early game. All the mana gathered each turn can be distributed between researching the abilities of your sovereign (kind of like a regular tech tree), researching spells or be used as mana to cast spells. It's possible to change how much mana you want to put into each field each turn, but the decision becomes a bit automatic in the late game, once you've found 12+ spells, finding new ones starts having diminishing returns. Each sovereign has a different research tree and they make the gameplay feel different enough, even if the buildings are basically identical independently of who you choose. The game still falls short in some aspects. The other factions feel like glorified mobs, they won't solve your game or make you lose it, I feel there's a big missed opportunity here, maybe expansions will look further into that. The complaints about the AI are certainly justified in maps larger than normal size (or in campaign, where the AI mostly sits around, but it's my understanding that's a design decision to make the campaign work as a tutorial of sorts). In higher difficulties in smaller maps, the AI is actually very competent, but playing in small maps removes part of the appeal of 4X games. As for the replayability, the sovereigns and starting hero makes the starting portion of the game feel different and the premade maps make some zones/resources to be prioritized, but once you understand what's the objective of the game, the late game is mostly about defending your borders until your army is big enough and it can get a bit repetitive. Overall I've enjoyed it a lot, I have over 80 hours on it. I would recommend it to anyone who likes 4X and wants to play something original. If you're only interested in the RPG part of the game, this may not be for you. »

« Not bad, not bad at all. The game is nice and robust, things work as they are suppose to work and it's fun to level up your heroes. In the beginning the game is kinda challenging, but later on, once you get a proper army, you quickly dispose of every enemy, of which some can still be quite hard. Combat is nice and fluent. But, the game has a load of flaws. A couple thing: Combat units are unbalanced. For example, archers. They are the base of every game with medievalish combat, yet here they are utterly useless. Not because they die fast or are weak, they are quite decent early game... if they finally get to shoot their freaking bows! The order of conbat is done via initiative, but I actually managed to get my hero do 3 attacks before it was my archer's turn. The unbalance in these things is ridiculous. Same with some equipement. Some are nice, but once you get in mid/late game, most items add little to the unit to the point where it's not really worth investing in: just build more units. But the worst thing about this game is the lack or replayability. All factions are basically the same, apart from some units and abilites, but they play exactly the same. And the goals in the game is exactly the same, always: collect shards, build army, defeat SK. That's it. A couple side-missions that involve alliying with the AI. Which basically does nothing apart from just sitting there occupying space you can have. AI factions are either turned off, or someone really messed up. Despite there, kinda big, disappointments, the game is quite enjoyable for one or maybe even 2 playthroughs, but not for a pricetags above €30. »