Gloria Victis: Medieval MMORPG – an independent development of a Polish studio Black Eye Games, released on Steam Early Access five years ago (and is still there). Haven’t heard of this one? Not surprising – the project turned out to be quite niche, did not gain much popularity, but was not a failure either, allowing the developers to try their hand at another genre. Siege Survival: Gloria Victis – “survival strategy”: the same “Viking-knight” setting as its MMO namesake (without literal copying of historical realities – the world here is fictional), and the gameplay can be described by the phrase “This War of Mine in the Middle Ages”.
It seems clear what awaits us: resource management, crafting, forays for supplies, difficult moral choices”… But did the developers manage to surprise us with something else??
Woe to the vanquished
Trouble has come to the kingdom of Midland: the coastal city of Edring was attacked by sea raiders from Kargald, the Ismirs. Despite fierce resistance, the city’s defenders were unable to do anything to oppose them – soon Edring was almost completely captured. Residents faced death and their homes were looted. Only the central castle survived, defended by a handful of guards; several townspeople took refuge inside, having managed to send a messenger calling for help. But we still have to live until the allies arrive, which will not be easy: there are few defenders, the Ismirs are preparing a new assault, and the supply of food and water in the garrison is limited.
Bastion holds the defense. By the way, such a small number of defenders (only 13) is not a simplification – in reality, a well-fortified castle could be defended by several dozen soldiers.
The player will have to take charge of the surviving townspeople (civilians, not soldiers). It is necessary to survive the siege and wait for help, providing the guards with food, equipment and medicine while they hold the defense on the walls. In a small castle courtyard you can build a warehouse, make a fire for cooking, build a kiln for firing bricks and smelting steel and other simple things, but this is not enough – you cannot do without regular night forays into the ruined city for supplies.
Day and night
The idea of survival strategies is not new: the game began to be compared to This War of Mine from the moment of its announcement. There are also very recent examples – for example Mr. Prepper, which I recently talked about. What’s interesting is that all these projects were made in Poland – for some reason the Poles are close to the theme of survival.
Now a huge cobblestone will fly here – there is a risk of being left without a device for collecting rainwater.
Gameplay Siege Survival: Gloria https://eternalslotscasino.co.uk/ Victis divided into two interconnected stages – day and night. During the day, townspeople do peaceful things: feed chickens and pigs, cook food, collect useful equipment, such as workbenches or stoves, and dig through the ruins of the tower – in case something valuable comes across. It’s not enough to take care of your charges – the player also has to worry about the garrison of the bastion, which repels assault after assault. Guards require food, drink and equipment, and repairing walls requires bricks and building stone. The Bastion, like the battles it wages, are abstract concepts: it is a separate window in the interface that shows the defense forces and their basic needs. Here you can pick up broken weapons and armor from the guards and send them new equipment and food.
Don’t forget about the characters directly under our control. There are not many of them – from one to four, depending on the starting settings. With an incomplete team, it is possible to find others by offering them a helping hand – this happens during night forays into a plundered city. These raids are needed, of course, not only to replenish the team (on the contrary, sometimes you doubt whether another hungry company is needed in an already poor fortress), but also, first of all, to search for resources, without which the siege will very quickly end in the defeat of the defense.
Edring is a large city, divided into several districts, each of which has its own probability of finding one or another type of supplies. Of course, every foray is fraught with the danger of getting caught and dying: the streets are patrolled by Ismir warriors, and our heroes, as a rule, are useless soldiers – it’s far from a fact that they will be able to survive in battle even with a single enemy. So you have to sneak around your native places, examining houses and barns in search of something useful. Time for looting is limited – you need to return to the castle at first rays of sun. Considering that the inventory is far from dimensionless, you have to carefully choose what you find to take with you and what to leave for next time.
Not everyone will live to see victory
Only one of the characters can go on a night raid, while the rest can rest or scout the area at this time (the latter will help you find out the date of the next assault and assess the strength of the attackers). Most likely, the scout will have to sleep for the next 24 hours – the player needs to strictly monitor the indicators of the inhabitants (there are six of them in total – fatigue, hunger, thirst, illness, health and mood). Therefore, constantly sending out the same hero (let’s say he has a large inventory) will lead to dire consequences.
Dying in the fortress from wounds, disease, hunger or physical exhaustion is much easier than falling from the axes of Ismir’s sentries in a night raid: patrolmen are quite clumsy, they are easy to notice and just as easy to hide from, so I was unlucky to lose a resident during a sortie only once, and only because of a bug – having buried himself in an obstacle, the poor fellow continued to run in place, receiving blow after blow.
After returning, a new day comes with new worries, which should not be shelved – “the clock is ticking”. Due to the inexorable passage of time, you have to choose – either try to collect a full four survivors in order to have time to do all the things in a short time, or limit yourself to one or two residents in the name of saving resources.
I advise you to choose the first option: yes, it’s a little more difficult, but not so boring. The bane of such games is the routine grind of resources, and if it is also built around waiting for each action to end (as here, for example), then generally turn off the lights: few people will like watching the slow movement of the progress bar while harvesting. The presence of several characters allows you to avoid this – while one is busy, you give orders to the second, third, and then, you see, the first one will be free. In any case, there will not be enough free hands, so there will be something for everyone.
“The agony of choice” that doesn’t exist
Unfortunately, during forays there is no escape from such a routine. As I already said, the enemies do not pose much of a threat, so each raid is just a run from one heap of garbage to another: rummaged around, took away the valuables, moved on. Moreover, you must return home, and no one will like backtracking.
The situation could be corrected by random encounters with surviving residents, moral dilemmas and situations that a city occupied by invaders should be rich in, but this is precisely the weakest point Siege Survival. No, from time to time we manage to stumble upon an event marked with a special icon: for example, a miraculously saved woman offers to exchange food for resources, or we are faced with a choice of how to behave while searching for food in a destroyed house. All this is designed in the form of already familiar text quests, which you can fail by choosing the wrong dialogue option.
But, what’s a shame, such events are very rare, they are very short and are unlikely to surprise a sophisticated player with anything. In This War of Mine, similar stories from the life of a war-torn city were done much better, and some even brought tears to the eyes. Here everything is ordinary: you expect a serious and gloomy plot, but what you get are small fragments, too indistinct to evoke at least some response in the soul.
During the assault, enemies can throw stones and carcasses of infected animals into the yard using catapults or fire at buildings with flaming arrows. You have to risk the health of residents and put out the fire – resources are more expensive.
Nevertheless, Siege Survival: Gloria Victis does not leave the feeling of unfinished work – the problem concerns only the plot and surroundings. The “survivalist” itself looks good – it’s noticeable that the developers have thought through both balance and complexity. There are several starting options – both for those who want hardcore and for those who like to immerse themselves in the plot (even if it’s almost invisible here). There’s even a fully customizable walkthrough and the ability to choose custom scenarios.
And for those who were primarily expecting a harsh medieval story about the difficult days and nights of a besieged city, the fate of which depends on a handful of brave men, the news is disappointing – this is not in the first place here.
Pros: absence of routine grinding during the daytime phase of gameplay, good balance of difficulty.
Cons: unsuccessful attempt to tell a serious story, boring forays into the city.
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