Summary Yes, I've been very critical of Worlds Of Magic: Planar Conquest, however, I do not think it is inherently a bad game. Wastelands Interactive have their heads in the right place and all the groundwork is there to make this a truly fantastic game. Disappointingly that just hasn't happened yet.
If you could describe Planar Conquest in one word that word would be 'ambitious'. For a game downsized into a platform as small as an iOS device, the developers have really tried to pack in as much as they can into the title. Perhaps this glut of content is a main driver behind its £8.99 price tag, which app-lovers might see as slightly excessive for a game that you effectively play during the commute.
Conquest as a Currency Conquest points previously were a source of 'advanced' currency from primarily rated PvP activities, and used as a way to target specific pieces of gear with the caveat of specific rating requirements necessary for items of high significance, such as Weapons and Mainset pieces (way back when). BECOME THE SUPREME SORCERER! Explore and conquer an almost limitless number of uniquely generated universes using military and magical power to overcome your foes. Find cities, raise armies, cast spells, and create powerful magical artifacts in your bid to become the Supreme Sorcerer Lord in Worlds of Magic: Planar Conquest, a 4X turn-based strategy game. Become an all-powerful Sorcerer Lord and lead one of 8 different races to the ultimate victory. Explore multiple planes of existence, raid dungeons, and conquer cities. Expand your armies, cast mighty spells, and summon godly creatures to do your bidding. Fight the enemies in D20 OGL battles.
Nonetheless, Planar Conquest sets out to prove that you can pack big things into small packages (get your mind out of the gutter). The game takes place in your bog-standard fantasy world, dominated by planes of existence that are effectively different planets. These planes are controlled by sorcerers and mages who own vast empires through the universe. It is your job, as one of these masters of the arcane, to defeat everyone else and bring it all under your rule.
The first thing you might notice about Planar Conquest is that it's very similar to Sid Meier's time-sink magnum opus Civilization, in that when you start a game you are allowed to pick a plane type (terrain type), the abundance of resources, the climate and the size of the landmasses. Three plane types are available at the start of the game, the rest being unlockable as you progress or, if you feel so inclined, unlockable via your wallet.
You're also able to choose your race, sorcerer type, favourite spells, traits and attributes. As mentioned before, this game has a tonne of detail invested into it. Rather disappointingly, as is the case with the selection of your world, four of the races (which look to have the most design and writing work put into them) are locked away behind a paywall. You're left with the fairly bog-standard Humans, Elves, Dark Elves and Undead.
Once you've loaded in, the game gives you a small starting space, with one city under your control and a set of units able to move and explore around your territory. It's a good thing that Planar Conquest has an extensive tutorial, since the player will be confronted with a dizzying array of menus, screens and options. There's your city screen, research screen, magic screen, army screen, events screen, diplomacy screen and more, not to mention a rather large assortment of icons across the entire UI.
Exploration of the world reveals resources, collectables, and special events. Oftentimes the latter two will be guarded by some generic neutral enemies you must defeat in battle and this is where Planar Conquest might surprise you. Instead of the two sprites hammering on each other a la Civilization, the game takes you down into a battle screen akin to Master of Magic - two sets of units staring at each other across a battlefield. You can then control the soldiers in your army in an RPG-style turn-based battle. It's a refreshing change from the strategy game norm and feels like a game in its own right at times.
This being a mobile game, the graphics aren't anything to write home about but they do the job fairly well considering the amount of back-end depth this title has. The animations and sound are solid, if uninspiring, and do the job they need to in order to keep you playing. Those playing the game on iOS devices with smaller screens (such as the iPhone 5c) may also struggle with this title, as manipulating the vast number of icons, buttons and tiles can be a struggle.
To be honest, if you're looking for a tile-based grand strategy game that fits in your pocket you can't do much better than Planar Conquest. With oodles of content and a surprisingly engaging battle system, you might find yourself spending a decent chunk of time playing the magical lord in this little app that packs a big punch.
Planar Conquest(Reviewed on iOS)
This game is great, with minimal or no negatives.
To be honest, if you're looking for a tile-based grand strategy game that fits in your pocket you can't do much better than Planar Conquest. With oodles of content and a surprisingly engaging battle system, you might find yourself spending a decent chunk of time playing the magical lord in this little app that packs a big punch.
Developed By : Wastelands Interactive
Published By : Ultimate Games
Category : 4X Strategy
Release Date : Jan 24, 2020
I'd imagine most gamers have at least one genre that they're not familiar with, mainly due to hating that style of game or just being uninterested. For me that genre would be strategy games, 4X strategy games even more so. I've never had anything against the genre — I've dabbled with the Valkyria Chronicles and Fire Emblem franchises — but when you predominantly play RPGs it can be hard to make time for more lengthy games. Going into Worlds of Magic: Planar Conquest, I knew that my lack of experience with the 4X genre would likely make this a difficult game to play. What I wasn't prepared for was just how beginner unfriendly it would turn out to be
Planar Conquest is set in a fantasy world being overrun by the Unhallowed, which are for all intents and purposes undead beings. As a Sorcerer Lord, you have the opportunity to conquer other races or try to unite them all. It's a simple setup filled with the usual fantasy tropes, but it does an OK job at getting you introduced to the world you're about to conquer.
After creating a procedurally generated world, you have to decide on the race you'll have control over, along with the talents of your Sorcerer Lord. How you create your character seemed to have more of an impact on the game than the race you choose to lead. By putting skill points into various magic circles and disciplines, you can unlock different spells and abilities to help both the city building and combat aspects of the game. Creating a custom Sorcerer Lord presents you with almost too many options, especially for beginners, so thankfully there is an option to pick a pre-set character instead.
Once you're actually in game, you're overwhelmed with information from the get go. Various resources, unit types and areas all require your attention, and Planar Conquest doesn't do a good job of explaining most of this to the player. There is a tutorial mode, though this only last for a few minutes and covers little outside of the basic controls. Because of this it's hard to recommend the game to new players, though it's possible to learn everything after enough trial and error. This lack of direction ends up being the hardest part about Planar Conquest, as once you've figured things out, the actual turn by turn gameplay isn't very engaging.
From my limited experience with 4X games, I'd say the basic structure of Planar Conquest is similar to Civilization if you ignore the fantasy theme. You start with a single town that generates resources based on the tiles within its borders. You can create new units from here, creating armies to protect your empire or explore more of the map. Filling out the map is simple enough as you can set units to auto explore, making the ever-present fog of war less oppressive.
As you build new units, expand your empire and discover new points of interest, it's inevitable that you'll end up running into another faction. In Civilization you'd often have the chance to negotiate with the leader of another empire, leading to new allies and potential trade agreements. In Planar Conquest however, it often felt that the AI never really cared for peace. I could understand this if I was playing as the aforementioned Unhallowed who are permanently at war with everyone, but when you know there's little chance at a peaceful resolution no matter your choice, it limits the amount of tactics you can employ.
Another area where Planar Conquest differs is the way combat is resolved. Instead of a simple animation that leads to some units being killed, battles instead take place in their own turn-based arenas. It's incredibly basic, even with the inclusion of your spells, and they take far too long to complete if there are more than a handful of units in battle. There is the option to auto-resolve battles, though even that is held back by the game sometimes deciding that a fight you should be guaranteed to win is actually not in your favour.
These issues with the battle system point to a biggest problem with the game overall: it's kinda boring. After getting the hang of all the different areas the game wants you to learn with little to no help and struggling through the clunky menus, there's very little here to keep your interest. Each turn you'll check the units being built, maybe explore more of the map or get into a few fights. Planar Conquest fails to make it feel like you're running an empire, the lack of interesting backstory or choices only harming the game in the long run. It also doesn't help that the game isn't particularly pleasant to look at, due to some ugly textures in battle and the overall flat look of each map. At least the artwork is nice, even if you'll mostly see it before you actually start a campaign.
In the end, I'm not really sure who Planar Conquest is designed for. 4X fans likely already have a favourite game in the genre, one that has higher production values and delivers an overall better experience than this game. Furthermore, newcomers to the genre will only be put off by the bland visuals and lacking tutorials. Maybe this is the game for you if you're absolutely dying for a new portable 4X title, but even that might not be enough to make this worth playing.
Follow Wastelands Interactive
Planar Conquest Wiki
You're also able to choose your race, sorcerer type, favourite spells, traits and attributes. As mentioned before, this game has a tonne of detail invested into it. Rather disappointingly, as is the case with the selection of your world, four of the races (which look to have the most design and writing work put into them) are locked away behind a paywall. You're left with the fairly bog-standard Humans, Elves, Dark Elves and Undead.
Once you've loaded in, the game gives you a small starting space, with one city under your control and a set of units able to move and explore around your territory. It's a good thing that Planar Conquest has an extensive tutorial, since the player will be confronted with a dizzying array of menus, screens and options. There's your city screen, research screen, magic screen, army screen, events screen, diplomacy screen and more, not to mention a rather large assortment of icons across the entire UI.
Exploration of the world reveals resources, collectables, and special events. Oftentimes the latter two will be guarded by some generic neutral enemies you must defeat in battle and this is where Planar Conquest might surprise you. Instead of the two sprites hammering on each other a la Civilization, the game takes you down into a battle screen akin to Master of Magic - two sets of units staring at each other across a battlefield. You can then control the soldiers in your army in an RPG-style turn-based battle. It's a refreshing change from the strategy game norm and feels like a game in its own right at times.
This being a mobile game, the graphics aren't anything to write home about but they do the job fairly well considering the amount of back-end depth this title has. The animations and sound are solid, if uninspiring, and do the job they need to in order to keep you playing. Those playing the game on iOS devices with smaller screens (such as the iPhone 5c) may also struggle with this title, as manipulating the vast number of icons, buttons and tiles can be a struggle.
To be honest, if you're looking for a tile-based grand strategy game that fits in your pocket you can't do much better than Planar Conquest. With oodles of content and a surprisingly engaging battle system, you might find yourself spending a decent chunk of time playing the magical lord in this little app that packs a big punch.
Planar Conquest(Reviewed on iOS)
This game is great, with minimal or no negatives.
To be honest, if you're looking for a tile-based grand strategy game that fits in your pocket you can't do much better than Planar Conquest. With oodles of content and a surprisingly engaging battle system, you might find yourself spending a decent chunk of time playing the magical lord in this little app that packs a big punch.
Developed By : Wastelands Interactive
Published By : Ultimate Games
Category : 4X Strategy
Release Date : Jan 24, 2020
I'd imagine most gamers have at least one genre that they're not familiar with, mainly due to hating that style of game or just being uninterested. For me that genre would be strategy games, 4X strategy games even more so. I've never had anything against the genre — I've dabbled with the Valkyria Chronicles and Fire Emblem franchises — but when you predominantly play RPGs it can be hard to make time for more lengthy games. Going into Worlds of Magic: Planar Conquest, I knew that my lack of experience with the 4X genre would likely make this a difficult game to play. What I wasn't prepared for was just how beginner unfriendly it would turn out to be
Planar Conquest is set in a fantasy world being overrun by the Unhallowed, which are for all intents and purposes undead beings. As a Sorcerer Lord, you have the opportunity to conquer other races or try to unite them all. It's a simple setup filled with the usual fantasy tropes, but it does an OK job at getting you introduced to the world you're about to conquer.
After creating a procedurally generated world, you have to decide on the race you'll have control over, along with the talents of your Sorcerer Lord. How you create your character seemed to have more of an impact on the game than the race you choose to lead. By putting skill points into various magic circles and disciplines, you can unlock different spells and abilities to help both the city building and combat aspects of the game. Creating a custom Sorcerer Lord presents you with almost too many options, especially for beginners, so thankfully there is an option to pick a pre-set character instead.
Once you're actually in game, you're overwhelmed with information from the get go. Various resources, unit types and areas all require your attention, and Planar Conquest doesn't do a good job of explaining most of this to the player. There is a tutorial mode, though this only last for a few minutes and covers little outside of the basic controls. Because of this it's hard to recommend the game to new players, though it's possible to learn everything after enough trial and error. This lack of direction ends up being the hardest part about Planar Conquest, as once you've figured things out, the actual turn by turn gameplay isn't very engaging.
From my limited experience with 4X games, I'd say the basic structure of Planar Conquest is similar to Civilization if you ignore the fantasy theme. You start with a single town that generates resources based on the tiles within its borders. You can create new units from here, creating armies to protect your empire or explore more of the map. Filling out the map is simple enough as you can set units to auto explore, making the ever-present fog of war less oppressive.
As you build new units, expand your empire and discover new points of interest, it's inevitable that you'll end up running into another faction. In Civilization you'd often have the chance to negotiate with the leader of another empire, leading to new allies and potential trade agreements. In Planar Conquest however, it often felt that the AI never really cared for peace. I could understand this if I was playing as the aforementioned Unhallowed who are permanently at war with everyone, but when you know there's little chance at a peaceful resolution no matter your choice, it limits the amount of tactics you can employ.
Another area where Planar Conquest differs is the way combat is resolved. Instead of a simple animation that leads to some units being killed, battles instead take place in their own turn-based arenas. It's incredibly basic, even with the inclusion of your spells, and they take far too long to complete if there are more than a handful of units in battle. There is the option to auto-resolve battles, though even that is held back by the game sometimes deciding that a fight you should be guaranteed to win is actually not in your favour.
These issues with the battle system point to a biggest problem with the game overall: it's kinda boring. After getting the hang of all the different areas the game wants you to learn with little to no help and struggling through the clunky menus, there's very little here to keep your interest. Each turn you'll check the units being built, maybe explore more of the map or get into a few fights. Planar Conquest fails to make it feel like you're running an empire, the lack of interesting backstory or choices only harming the game in the long run. It also doesn't help that the game isn't particularly pleasant to look at, due to some ugly textures in battle and the overall flat look of each map. At least the artwork is nice, even if you'll mostly see it before you actually start a campaign.
In the end, I'm not really sure who Planar Conquest is designed for. 4X fans likely already have a favourite game in the genre, one that has higher production values and delivers an overall better experience than this game. Furthermore, newcomers to the genre will only be put off by the bland visuals and lacking tutorials. Maybe this is the game for you if you're absolutely dying for a new portable 4X title, but even that might not be enough to make this worth playing.
Follow Wastelands Interactive
Planar Conquest Wiki
Follow Ultimate Games
Planar Conquest Review
*The Switch Effect was provided a code for this game*
