When big publishers let their brands go to waste, dedicated indie developers often step into the breach, trying to take familiar concepts and breathing new life into them with their own charm. This also applies to the small team at Lavapotion. With Songs of Conquest, the Swedes have released a title that clearly wants to follow in the footsteps of Heroes of Might & Magic. Ubisoft hasn't given the brand a new release for almost ten years now. Fans are therefore even more excited about a potential heir. The game has been in Early Access for almost exactly two years. In our first impressions of the release at the time, we attested that Songs of Conquest had the potential to create the same pull as its great role model. Now that the final version has been released, we have taken another look at the game for testing.
Learn from winners
Like its great role model, Songs of Conquest is an exciting mix of turn-based strategy and role-playing. With hero characters, the so-called Guardians, and their army, we move across a world map in rounds. There we collect all sorts of resources, equipment for our hero, as well as temporary and permanent buffs. We build buildings in cities and settlements to train new units for our army, increase resource production and research improvements.
As we travel through the game world, we will always encounter enemies. Whether they are neutral monsters or units from enemy factions, the battles are also fought on turn-based hex battlefields. That's the rough description of the game concept, which should be very familiar to fans of Heroes of Might & Magic. The developers at Lavapotion have faithfully adopted the successful formula, but still added their own charm.
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Source: Lavapotion
Four factions
The game's setting is a fantasy world in which several factions fight for dominance. Born from an ancient empire, Arleon is a collection of baronies fighting for dominance. The Rana are a swamp people who were enslaved for a long time and now want to fight their way to freedom. The Barya, an association of independent trading states, are particularly interested in their profits. And then there is the Barony of Loth, which is actually on the decline, but wants to resurrect the glory days of the old empire with the help of a cult.
The intersecting stories of these four factions are told in four corresponding campaigns. Each campaign includes four missions. That doesn't sound like much at first, but in the end it still results in 20-30 hours of playing time. The last missions of each campaign in particular take place on fairly large maps, so you can spend a lot of time on them. Especially if you want to explore the last corner of the map for exciting loot. The story is told primarily through text displays during the missions. Unfortunately there is no voice output.
Overall, the story didn't really captivate us. It served much more as background noise for the even more gripping challenges that the individual missions of the campaign presented us with. Even on the easiest level of difficulty, you should at least use your gray cells a little to successfully complete the mission objectives. Unfortunately, also because the AI is pretty obviously cheating. In this context, we also found it a shame that our hard-earned fighting force would not be carried over into the next mission of the campaign. Although our hero retains all level advancements, upgrades and equipment, the starting army is fixed on each map.
Source: Lavapotion
Collecting and building
All the more incentive for us to take a careful look around every new map. It feels like you can find something useful every two meters. Raw materials can be found in crumbling houses, we can give our troops a refreshing buff at mystical springs, and in a camp on the side of the road there may be a few resting soldiers that we can hire. In addition to these unique discoveries, we also capture various objects for our faction. Particularly important are buildings such as farms and mines, which provide us with a constant stream of resources such as stone, wood and, most importantly, gold.
In order to strengthen our army, a lot of the shimmering currency is needed. So how well we can increase our combat effectiveness directly depends on our ability to generate income. A good source of new resources are the settlements and cities on the map. Once we have taken over a branch like this, it guarantees us a good chunk of permanent income.
However, we first have to invest a lot in order to use the full potential of a settlement. To do this, we build a wide variety of buildings on small, medium and large building sites. We defend the city with watchtowers, various buildings help us recruit new types of troops, and research facilities allow us to unlock numerous improvements. However, the building slots are very limited depending on the size of the settlement. It is therefore important to think carefully about which building is of strategic use.