Slitherine

Two months ago we announced a brand new 4x strategy game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. We are talking of course of Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War.

Set on the planet of Gladius Prime, the game will pitch four factions against each other in a deadly struggle for survival and domination.

The developers Proxy Studios are currently hard at work to flesh out the game. It is going through Beta as we speak, and if you want you can sign up for it and give us a hand.

In the meantime, we would like to shed some light on the game and give you more details.

Next week in an exclusive event on Reddit, Proxy Studios will answer all questions for 24 hours in a live iAMA! Have all your questions answered by visiting www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/ on January 26th , starting at 1 pm CET!

Please tell me more about the replay value of this game. Is a Random Map generator going to be included? Thanks

Is this Twilight Swords adeptus astartes chapter? I found only one planet Gladius - Gladius IV, homeworld of Twilight Swords

Hello athineos
Yes - a customisable random map generator is a key part of Gladius

a question being a 4x game will you be able to choose your chapter, regiment etc / make your own or will their be presets to choose from? I ask this cause the one thing lacking in every 40k game to date is making your own army to that degree. can you decide what units are allowed for a chapter to use, can they get special units not available to the same group otherwise and certain tech upgrades. an example is black Templars close combat to say an imperial fists more siege like mind set. for me the fun of 40k is making a faction your own through paint and design of the forces some can be done by simply researching upgrades, others more personal like iconography need be added before you start play. can upgrades be blocked for a particular force as they don't have them. using the black Templars again they have no psykers so any research into that group or tree should be shifted for the emperors champion and faith or the like.

Is it moddable? Is there and editor? How long is the campaign?

At the moment you can choose your faction but not your chapter. If that is something people want we can look in to it for the future. You will decide which units to research and which to recruit and how to upgrade and equip them so you'll be developing your own custom faction. If and when we add chapters they would need to have their own strengths and weaknesses. We spent our time adding new factions rather than splitting the Space Marines in to sub factions as we think this gives more variety. Each faction has its own method of collecting resources and operating, much like in Star Craft, so you have to play each faction very differently. That creates a lot of testing!

It shouls be pretty moddable but there is no editor as maps are procedurally generated so there are no pre set maps to edit.

Will Gladius be release anywhere outside of Steam (and Slitherine's website)? How about GOG?

Will there be included hot-seat mode?

Yes it will release on GoG.

Hotseat can be done but you have to run 2 instances of the game on one machine and switch between them.

IainMcNeil wrote:Yes it will release on GoG.

Yippie! What a great news!

IainMcNeil wrote:Hotseat can be done but you have to run 2 instances of the game on one machine and switch between them.

Erm... Sorry, but it's just another identical case to the one from WH40k: Armageddon (and Sanctus Reach as well, if I'm correctly). How come that even in such relatively new games, as Age of Wonders 3, Civilization VI or Civilization: Beyond Earth, there is normal hot-seat mode, correctly implemented. In AoW series it's not even "distincted" in any way, you're just choosing single scenario and in window with choosing AI's difficulty level, you can choose another human player.

Simple and proper solution. Despite many voices that "hot seat is passe". Is there any particular reason that in all those cases we're forced to log into SLitherine's service even for hot-seat mode, which is by nature offline mode? I'm starting to have impression, that despite the fact that those three games (Armageddon, Sanctus Reach and Gladius) were/are made by different studios, by some reason all of them are "forced" to log into slitherine service and being online even for hot-seat mode.

Please, don't take it personally, but I don't know any other PC game with such prepasterous solution for hot seat/splits screen/same screen etc. mode.

Probably because Gladius has a 4 man team and Age of Wonders is at least 20, last time I visited their offices. Putting in all the special edge case extras is not something a small team has time to do. They have to focus on what is important and like it or not hot seat is a features used by a fraction of a % of the audience so is not one that we can afford to spend much time on.

That's totally missed argument. First of all, creators of Panzer Corps and WH40k: Armageddon implemented completely separate (and fully working) hot-seat mode in Panzer Corps. Literally in the same way as I've described - in single scenario mode, but with possibility to choose second player "alive".

Moreover - it's online multiplayer which generate additional costs and effort. Plenty of turn-based strategies made by one person (ev. one person with help in some aspects, e.g. creating music) - Eador: Genesis, Telepath Tactics, Drums of War - have only hot-seat. And i've read comments from creators, asked about online multiplayer, that it would require a lot of effort to make working online code etc.

No offence, I'm quite surprised that you've picked such inaccurate argument.

It doesn't miss the point and it is totally accurate Small teams make tough choices. Saying game x with a small team has feature Y doesn't mean anything unless than game also has every other feature of the game you're comparing to and a team of identical size.

Gladius has gorgeous randomly generated 3D worlds with a huge range of unit abilities, 4X gameplay and much more. Small team agonize over where to invest their time. Yes full multiplayer is much harder than hotseat but only a tiny minority of players use hotseat so unless you have time to spare its a feature that is not worth the effort.

've decided to contact directly with developer and received some concrete answer. So I think that I'd rather continue this in priv, with developer.

I am a ork fanboy, will be there be flash gitz? or.. or maybe even... big shoota nobz? Mork wants to know

Hi, can I ask whether I can mix units from space marines and imperial guards in my army? The feature of Armageddon I enjoyed most is that I can command space marines and imperial guards together, which I don't see any other WH 40k game allows me to. I've heard people saying it is allowed to mix armies in the tabletop games, so I hope we can have that feature in this game as well.

superxingtan wrote:Hi, can I ask whether I can mix units from space marines and imperial guards in my army? The feature of Armageddon I enjoyed most is that I can command space marines and imperial guards together, which I don't see any other WH 40k game allows me to. I've heard people saying it is allowed to mix armies in the tabletop games, so I hope we can have that feature in this game as well.

That would only be possible via modding. Otherwise they are separate factions with serparate unit-pools.

Xilmi wrote:

superxingtan wrote:Hi, can I ask whether I can mix units from space marines and imperial guards in my army? The feature of Armageddon I enjoyed most is that I can command space marines and imperial guards together, which I don't see any other WH 40k game allows me to. I've heard people saying it is allowed to mix armies in the tabletop games, so I hope we can have that feature in this game as well.

That would only be possible via modding. Otherwise they are separate factions with serparate unit-pools.

Cool! I hope the game will support easy modeling. Thanks:)

Do you plan on making new factions in expansions, like chaos, eldar, tau and such and also adding new units to existing factions, would love to see landraiders and such

First of all I want to say I am very much enjoying this game, and the patches have added welcome additions.

That being said I have some concerns, and my question is can you please delay the launch to work on the game some more.

Right now as a lover of 4x and 40k this game works for me, but if you only like one of the 2 then it seems much less appealing. I want this to be a game that is good enough that it can attract people that would only be interested in 40k or 4x, instead of potentially needing both.

To start with the lack of any form of diplomacy is concerning. It feels like a development cut rather than a design choice. It is true that not all factions in the lore would work together. However some defiantly would. It makes almost no sense that members of the same faction wouldn't have some diplomacy. And some factions like Space Marines and Astra Militarum should also be able to work together. Sure in the lore these factions don't always get along, but to not even give it an option just feels wrong. And for gameplay why not let any faction try and work with another? Couldn't there just be penalties rather than a full feature missing?

Combat around cities feels very odd. Only my main central point has any attack or defense capability. Even though cities appear to be walled, hostile forces can just move through them at will. And if that is the case why can't they destroy sections they are in? Raiding and pillaging works well in the grim dark of 40k, its lack is felt.

Squads of units should have some more involved leveling up and upgrades. Sergeants and other ranked members you see in the table top should be able to be added units where appropriate. The same with individual weapon upgrades for certain units.

Lets be honest all warhammer games should have an army painter of some kind.

A quest system is nice but feels much more well rounded in other games such as ones in the endless series.

More victory options would be great.

Having resources on the map be required for certain buildings or units would add a much needed layer of complexity.

Units having a greater ability to fortify an area and get defensive bonuses would be nice.

Lack of diplomacy is my biggest complaint so far, but many smaller things and general level of polish make me concerned that the game is coming out too soon. I think it needs some more work to be successful, if the game comes out in 3 days, I am afraid it will be poorly received and die out before it hits its stride. Take your time and get it right. Right now other 4x games just feel much more fun than this one, so unless you really want 40k and 4x this game falls a bit flat.