I'm considering buying Sanctus Reach but I've read that army building is different from games like Panzer Corps with no perma death and a somewhat random unit deployment.
Could someone elaborate on how you build your army roster and how you deploy units into battle?
Thanks in advance!
Army building
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Bladeheart
- Corporal - Strongpoint
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2011 8:03 pm
Re: Armym building
When you select a battle you will get a list of available units that you can purchase. That list has an element of randomness to it; think of it along the lines of a list of 30 units out of a total of 35 (please do not take the numbers as cannon).
Each time a unit gains xp it carries over to the next engagement in the campaign regardless of whether it survives the battle or not; maybe 'death' encompasses loss of combat effectiveness, but the graphics do suggest a far more permanent effect.
Each time a unit gains xp it carries over to the next engagement in the campaign regardless of whether it survives the battle or not; maybe 'death' encompasses loss of combat effectiveness, but the graphics do suggest a far more permanent effect.
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Dizzy_slith
- Administrative Corporal - SdKfz 251/1
- Posts: 139
- Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 9:20 pm
Re: Armym building
Havent played Panzer Corps. Couldnt compare it.
Here's how you create a battle. You can do a campaign of which there are two. They are fun and include a mix of random skirmish and scripted big missions that are pretty difficult and challenging. Units are chosen from a random force organization list that regenerates if you back out of the force selection and redo the briefing. So you get random units for your mission every time with the exception of certain scripted mission special characters that you cant change. The list usually comprises more troops than you have points to buy. So you can customize your army with what you have at hand.
Also with campaigns, units have a three tier experience level. Each unit starts off needing a few points of experience to level up so to speak. Once leveled up they gain wargear which improves that unit. These units may be used in the next mission. So typically, a unit can get three wargear items making them much more effective in battle. If they die before achieving the next tier, they lose that tier's wargear but keep what they have. So its common to make it through to the end of the campaign with units to choose in your force organization that have only one or two items of wargear and are maxed out in experience. The current system lacks perma-death in the sense that wargear items are not removed from dead units. Only their experience tier (in some cases) are advanced without awarding a wargear item. Although sometimes, units can suffer death and still be leveled up. So there is some conjecture if this system works. Death of a unit is defined as every member of said unit dying. If one member of a squad survives, the unit survives.
Unit deployment is sometimes fixed for scripted missions, meaning they start in a specific place. Most times you may redeploy your forces on your side of the map where you want.
The other two ways to play are in skirmish mode where you have a lot of choice selection to change a lot of variables, and multiplayer, which is a lot like skirmish and includes something like a hotseat option. We really want the Devs to make a proper Skirmish Hotseat. Im hoping they will. There is a third way, you can use the included editor which is very powerful and make your own missions complete with any type of enemy and allied unit the game comes with. Its a little difficult to use easily however, as you cant just create a mission and play it which would be awesome. I havent seen the devs post a youtube video intructional on how to use it either, which would be nice because their Skirmish is limited severely in regards to unit choice selection which again is completely random and leave out entire unit choices and is mostly foot-slogger heavy.
The Devs have been active on the forums listening to gamer feedback. They have paid attention to our request to have unlimited unit selection for the Force Organization selection and also have an option for it to be random like it is now. Whether this is implemented is anyone's guess, but as the game is now, it does a piss poor job of allowing you to field an army of your choosing, does not spawn a list of any type of mechanized units in large numbers and sometimes completely fails to list others from ever appearing, hence our request for an unlimited force organization list.
Also, Fore Points, the 'money' used to buy troops at the Force Organization selection screen is wonky. Its nearly reliable to about 4600 points per side but sometimes doesnt give you or the AI that much. For example, if I wanted to face the Orks and give them 4500 points to buy troops and give myself 3500 points, Im spotting the Orks some extra points to make it harder for me, the game sometimes short changes the enemy force by up to a thousand points so my mission turns out to not be so challenging. Another example, If I select the AI to use 10,000 Force Points and I select 5000, the Ai often has a limit of 4k or 5k or so troops it will ever give you or itself. And despite so many Force Points, you'll often never see a titan or land raider spawned in the list to choose from which is a total let down. Another example is I went with a 25,000 point force for me and the limit it seems is 15k, but the Force Organization spawns only 10k points. Another time it game me only 5k. But it more or less behaves under 4k and you can expect close to what that gives for both you and the AI. Force Points needs to be fixed along with Force Organization.
Despite these issues, the game is mad fun, well designed and has a LOT of depth and replayability and some of the funniest sh!t happens that is just hilarious. Orks accidently shoot their own troops, sometimes you might as well, there's visual eye candy as far as the models and physics go, thunder hammers crunching Gretchin into the ground with arms and legs flying in all directions, shots going wild hitting unintended targets... its fun. The maps are varied, well designed and offer some of the richest and tatical gameplay Ive ever had the pleasure of playing this side of Xcom. So the few negative things I listed above are important issues Im sure the Devs will fix, but aside from that, theres so much to like Im currently overlooking it... for the time being.
I'd buy this game, because it makes you make choices which will either get you killed in a hurry, or show the galaxy why they should fear the Emperor's Elites. By far, the BEST mission Ive played is the Hollow Hills scenario. The mission tasks you with evacuating a rhino to an extraction point. Its hard to make it there as the Ork horde is upon you, relentless and wants you dead. The green tide is so thick it becomes hard to breathe. But you can make it. Punch through the green skin's line and make it there as soon as you can as the enemy grows more numerous as they pour in from all sides. But I played this mission a second time after winning the campaign to see what would happen if I didnt evac the rhino. I had the most fun of any mission I had ever played. It was like the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. At the end of this Kobayashi Maru scenario, all my men were finally over run and killed to the last man. I had lost all 15 of my squads. But I took down 95 enemy squads doing it! There was no place on the battlefield that didnt have a severed leg or blown off arm or dead body you'd step on. Burning, wrecked and blown up vehicles were everywhere and it truly looked epic in feel and scope. This game creates moments reminiscent of the best 40k lore you've read and should spark your imagination to want to write about your battles. The game is that good and if the Devs fix the flaws with the game, IMO it will be the best 40k game ever made.
Here's how you create a battle. You can do a campaign of which there are two. They are fun and include a mix of random skirmish and scripted big missions that are pretty difficult and challenging. Units are chosen from a random force organization list that regenerates if you back out of the force selection and redo the briefing. So you get random units for your mission every time with the exception of certain scripted mission special characters that you cant change. The list usually comprises more troops than you have points to buy. So you can customize your army with what you have at hand.
Also with campaigns, units have a three tier experience level. Each unit starts off needing a few points of experience to level up so to speak. Once leveled up they gain wargear which improves that unit. These units may be used in the next mission. So typically, a unit can get three wargear items making them much more effective in battle. If they die before achieving the next tier, they lose that tier's wargear but keep what they have. So its common to make it through to the end of the campaign with units to choose in your force organization that have only one or two items of wargear and are maxed out in experience. The current system lacks perma-death in the sense that wargear items are not removed from dead units. Only their experience tier (in some cases) are advanced without awarding a wargear item. Although sometimes, units can suffer death and still be leveled up. So there is some conjecture if this system works. Death of a unit is defined as every member of said unit dying. If one member of a squad survives, the unit survives.
Unit deployment is sometimes fixed for scripted missions, meaning they start in a specific place. Most times you may redeploy your forces on your side of the map where you want.
The other two ways to play are in skirmish mode where you have a lot of choice selection to change a lot of variables, and multiplayer, which is a lot like skirmish and includes something like a hotseat option. We really want the Devs to make a proper Skirmish Hotseat. Im hoping they will. There is a third way, you can use the included editor which is very powerful and make your own missions complete with any type of enemy and allied unit the game comes with. Its a little difficult to use easily however, as you cant just create a mission and play it which would be awesome. I havent seen the devs post a youtube video intructional on how to use it either, which would be nice because their Skirmish is limited severely in regards to unit choice selection which again is completely random and leave out entire unit choices and is mostly foot-slogger heavy.
The Devs have been active on the forums listening to gamer feedback. They have paid attention to our request to have unlimited unit selection for the Force Organization selection and also have an option for it to be random like it is now. Whether this is implemented is anyone's guess, but as the game is now, it does a piss poor job of allowing you to field an army of your choosing, does not spawn a list of any type of mechanized units in large numbers and sometimes completely fails to list others from ever appearing, hence our request for an unlimited force organization list.
Also, Fore Points, the 'money' used to buy troops at the Force Organization selection screen is wonky. Its nearly reliable to about 4600 points per side but sometimes doesnt give you or the AI that much. For example, if I wanted to face the Orks and give them 4500 points to buy troops and give myself 3500 points, Im spotting the Orks some extra points to make it harder for me, the game sometimes short changes the enemy force by up to a thousand points so my mission turns out to not be so challenging. Another example, If I select the AI to use 10,000 Force Points and I select 5000, the Ai often has a limit of 4k or 5k or so troops it will ever give you or itself. And despite so many Force Points, you'll often never see a titan or land raider spawned in the list to choose from which is a total let down. Another example is I went with a 25,000 point force for me and the limit it seems is 15k, but the Force Organization spawns only 10k points. Another time it game me only 5k. But it more or less behaves under 4k and you can expect close to what that gives for both you and the AI. Force Points needs to be fixed along with Force Organization.
Despite these issues, the game is mad fun, well designed and has a LOT of depth and replayability and some of the funniest sh!t happens that is just hilarious. Orks accidently shoot their own troops, sometimes you might as well, there's visual eye candy as far as the models and physics go, thunder hammers crunching Gretchin into the ground with arms and legs flying in all directions, shots going wild hitting unintended targets... its fun. The maps are varied, well designed and offer some of the richest and tatical gameplay Ive ever had the pleasure of playing this side of Xcom. So the few negative things I listed above are important issues Im sure the Devs will fix, but aside from that, theres so much to like Im currently overlooking it... for the time being.
I'd buy this game, because it makes you make choices which will either get you killed in a hurry, or show the galaxy why they should fear the Emperor's Elites. By far, the BEST mission Ive played is the Hollow Hills scenario. The mission tasks you with evacuating a rhino to an extraction point. Its hard to make it there as the Ork horde is upon you, relentless and wants you dead. The green tide is so thick it becomes hard to breathe. But you can make it. Punch through the green skin's line and make it there as soon as you can as the enemy grows more numerous as they pour in from all sides. But I played this mission a second time after winning the campaign to see what would happen if I didnt evac the rhino. I had the most fun of any mission I had ever played. It was like the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. At the end of this Kobayashi Maru scenario, all my men were finally over run and killed to the last man. I had lost all 15 of my squads. But I took down 95 enemy squads doing it! There was no place on the battlefield that didnt have a severed leg or blown off arm or dead body you'd step on. Burning, wrecked and blown up vehicles were everywhere and it truly looked epic in feel and scope. This game creates moments reminiscent of the best 40k lore you've read and should spark your imagination to want to write about your battles. The game is that good and if the Devs fix the flaws with the game, IMO it will be the best 40k game ever made.
Last edited by Dizzy_slith on Wed Jan 25, 2017 6:09 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Re: Army building
Thank you very much, both of you.
Off to Steam to buy it.
Off to Steam to buy it.
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Dizzy_slith
- Administrative Corporal - SdKfz 251/1
- Posts: 139
- Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2017 9:20 pm
Re: Army building
Just be sure to give yourself enough time to get used to how to click, move, rotate and face all your units. Its seems a bit clunky at first, but there's a method to this madness which will soon become apparent. The Devs have a well thought out system that gels together nicely. The tactics and weapons, morale and cover and range and the varied types of units will all start making sense after you've played a few games. Just give the game a little bit of time and it will reward you with deep wealth in choice of units, strategy and tactics. The games just quick fun. GL, see ya on the battlefield.