Godking: Master of Rituals

Review

After starting a new game you’ll have the choice to choose a Faction. There are Eight factions on offer to you: Alfendor, Imperatus, United Tribes, Mercia, Blackbog, Scaleborne and Khaoset. To help you choose which faction to play, there’s some information about them which details their Lore, Playstyle & Strategy, Holding Upgrades, Ritual Spells, Commanders, Recruits and Summons. Next you will have to choose your Incarnate (leader) from the Ten on offer to you. Each Incarnate has information about them, such as Lore, Playstyle & Strategy, Ritual Spells, Traits and Summons. Next you can give yourself a name and choose a colour from the twelve on offer to you. You can also set the World Size (Small, Medium or Large), and choose the number of AI Enemies Factions to play against.

Upon deciding your faction etcetera, you’ll find yourself on the World Map at your fortified base. As I played as the faction Alfendor, my home base was the castle city of Alvedal. The aim of the game is to capture all the enemy Faction’s Headquarters (which are scattered around the map somewhere) to be victorious. However, should your Headquarters fall then you’ll lose the game. To help protect your base you will need to recruit units and have them stationed at your base. From your headquarters you’ll be able to recruit new Commanders, Units, Activate Upgrades and manage your Garrison. New Commanders and Units will cost some resources to recruit: Gold or Food. Each turn you will be able to recruit One Commander and three new recruits.

The world map is covered by the Fog of War, so you’ll have to uncover what lies around your starting point by venturing out into the unknown. As you do so, you’ll uncover new areas, along with new locations, such as Farms, Quarries, Mills, Bandit Camps etcetera. Moving into these locations will give you some resources each turn.  Some of these locations will have enemies within them and you’ll have to battle those enemies before being able to reap the rewards each turn. You can also recruit new units and commanders from various locations once you have control of them. However, they can be taken over by enemies, and if this happens, you’ll lose any resources.

Also roaming the land are the other factions, along with creatures.  Their Power is indicated above them, and it’s the same for locations; so you will know how strong something is before you attack. You attack by moving onto the same tile as your enemy or entering a location. Battle will commence at the end of your turn; the battle screen will then open, displaying both yours and the enemy's armies on the field. The battle will play out automatically with the winner is the one with units left on the field. After defeating your enemy, you’ll gain some Experience Points and maybe some Artifacts, which will give bonuses to one of your units when equipped.

In the Options, you’ll find Video (Resolution, Full Screen, Enable V-Sync and Enable Battlefield Grass), Audio (Master, Music, Sound Effects and Ambience Volume Sliders), General (Select Headquarters at End of Cycle, Centre on Commander After Every Move, Skip Summoning Visualisation, Skip World Map Animations and UI Zoom), Controls (Edge Scrolling and Remap Key Binds).

While I have enjoyed playing Godking: Master of Rituals so far, I don’t think that it’s a game for the more hardcore strategists out there. While there is a tutorial, it’s not a hands-on tutorial, so it’s more of a play-and-figure-things-out-yourself style scenario. This isn’t a bad thing, as the game is easy to learn. It looks good and runs well.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!