And in Kyiv – an uncle. Eador: Fragments of the worlds
"Gambling" goes to the mother of the cities of Russians to look at the main Russian-speaking indie strategy
WHAT?
“Eador: Fragments of the Worlds”, a combed and applied version of a strange, but terribly fascinating hybrid Heroes of Might and Magic, Europa Universalis and Civilization
WHERE?
Kyiv, Ukraine
The first meeting with the game “Eador: Creation” reminded your author acquaintance with the TV show “Air circus of Monty Pyton”, which took place at a rather tender age. Local animation seemed to be like a cartoon (which then showed much less often than we would like), but looked like a devil knows that – the children's psyche was simply not ready for the absurd humor of the best British comedians in the world. And only years later, with a closer look, everything finally fell into place.
With Eador the same story. It seemed to resemble Heroes of Might Andmagic or King's Bounty, but when approaching, I wanted to grab the heart even to those who were in the darkest depths of the indie sector (look at the corresponding Xbox Live channel-there are really creepy there) and “Dream Games” From the domestic manufacturer. There was no animation, the setting resembled the nightmare of Nika Perumov, the appearance of the game forced the warmth to recall the Warlords 2 (1993), the functions and available options, on the contrary, were an order of magnitude more than the average person got into the head. It is enough that the list of buildings available for construction in the city totaled up to four hundred items, and all the manipulations with them took place on a single screen.
One in the field
However, to those who got the courage to swallow the lumps approaching to the throat, the incredible one opened: in its depths, Eador in places on two buildings was ahead of all-analogues, and all the functions laid in it worked, and did not look like an interactive analogue of dirty socks forgotten on the floor The owner of a bachelor apartment. And the fact that the core of the game was made by one single ex-employee of the company GSC (Alexey Bokulev, a man with a beard Rasputin, worked on "at one time" Cossacks "And a number of other games), guaranteed the absence of internal contradictions in it.
[Bullet]] In order for the population in the provinces to grow up, the hero needs to regularly linger there and conduct reconnaissance – even unpretentious lizards do not want to settle on undeveloped lands.
The few noticed this nugget, but, fortunately, including people from the company Snowball Studios , who undertook, expressed by the words of the cat Matroskin, to clear the game of cleanings and show a wide audience. To do this, they introduced Alexei to his fellow countrymen from the studio Unicorngames , whose works (see. " XIII century: Glory or death ") Were the exact opposite of" Eador ": with meticulous elaboration of weapons and standards of medieval banners, they looked like an erotic dream of a modelist, but the dry losered any part Total War. In short, they perfectly complement each other.
Therefore, now the alignment is as follows: Unicorn is polished the interface and a new graphic engine (now with animation!), and Alexei watches their work and looks, no matter what happens. That is, conceptually the game will remain almost the same as it was, and if you are already familiar with Eador (once in 2009 we laid it out on our disk, and on the official website it is still distributed for free), then the main news. Although the work is still in full swing, the authors do everything so that the game looks and controlled humanly. It seems they are doing. The game is really going. Everything, now you can quit reading this article and calmly wait for the release.
One in the hex
Well, now we will try to explain to all the remaining 98% of our readers, why should I wait for Eador still. In his project, Alexei Bokolev very deftly compiled the developments from a whole scattering step -by -step strategies and role -playing games – from the mentioned Homm and King’s Bounty to global historical wargers, regularly supplied Paradox Interactive. The only deviation from the tradition that is striking on the way is a strategic card divided on the provinces (just like in Total War and analogs), and not to the city-states, as is customary in Heroes. Each region has its own indigenous population, natural conditions, resources, their own folk moods. The provinces bring income, but the heroes and troops can be hired only in the family castle or specially equipped citizens.
[Bullet]] Your answers in dialogs can bring you benefits equal to success, harm or not to influence anything at all – just like in life.
The remaining elements of the equation have long been familiar: the hero is staggering on the map, cuts out disagrees, captures new lands, grows in levels, dresses in the last fashion, fights on a tactical map. You can hire several wards, but the cost of each subsequent increases in crazy progression, so even the most capital players can hardly afford four characters.
Further thin details begin. First, fights. If in Homm the damn lots of conditional skeletons fit on the same cage, then the rule “one cell – one unit” acts in Eador. Lost the crossbow in battle – if you please hire a new. In exchange for this restriction of the hero’s retinue, he gains experience and in the same way receives new skills with each level, albeit rather banal (growth in health, morality, etc.p.). Another detail: on the tactical map there are different types of terrain and relief that affect the parameters of units: let's say, lizards receive bonuses sitting in their native swamps, and people, on the contrary, get stuck in them and lose their passages.
One in the astral
It can be no less interesting on a global map: almost every move of the game throws us random events in the manner of the series Hearts of Iron , which are served in text form. For example, one of the provinces can rebel, and then you will have to decide what to do with all these marches of disagreements – either calm down, or rest. Or, to the shore, it can nail a bottle with a message in which someone stuck on the island prays for help. Moreover, your actions can and will have ambiguous consequences: in the example with a bottle, you will have to fork out on three hundred coins, and the saved merchant will pay only his sensual “thank you”. However, it is important to remember that a lot will depend on your solutions and moral appearance, including the ending of the game – in Eador there is a karma system, inconspicuous, but non -abiding.
[Bullet]] As you success, these scattered shreds of space will unite the astral island in impressive sizes.
And as if all these subtleties are not enough – in the game, in addition to a strategic and tactical map, there is also a third, global. You see what is the matter: according to the plot, the game world will be split into many fragments of the earth soaring in the astral plane, which seeking an insatiable chaos. The hero is not some kind of Kwiff Casino king or duke there, but one of the lords of the losers, in the strength of which to save everything reasonable, good and eternal. Each fragment of the universe is a separate map, which has its own unique technologies. They can be captured and attached to your empire. Very soon the player will have to face other lords, and then ..
Perhaps you should stop at this place. Despite the modest appearance, Eador is a huge and very complex game. It is enough that for a block diagram with a description of possible options for the development of the city, colleagues from the magazine "Best Computer Games" took several turns. And if we now undertook to describe the mechanics in all the subtleties, then this number of “gambling” would have to be urgently renamed “Eadoromania”.
But we repeat: the most important thing in this game is not the quantity, but the quality of fitting elements to each other. Remember how many times Russian -speaking dreamers threw products into the shelves (we are also sure, made with diligence and love), in which a third of the functions did not work, the second third did not work as it should, and the third worked, but only after two patches. This is not the case: we spent several days in Eador and did not find a single feature that would seem unequivocally superfluous and which I would like to throw away – only to process the file. Just now, Unicorn and Snowball are busy. The results of the finishing work-in February-March next year.