Etherlords

My playtime says 10 minutes, but I have played over 8 hours ( I've been running it from the .exe directly which Steam doesn't log for DRM Free games) I've bought the game out of nostalgia, and let me tell you, it was a big mistake. My idea of it was heavily embelished by the fact I had only berely tried it at the time. This game didn't aged well at all, and you can see it in the many issues, the smallest of which is the fact that you will constantly crash! (unless you launch it from the .exe after enabling "Win98 compatibility Mode", run it as administrator and DPI related settings) This game is 5% fun and 95% tedius repetition - the 5% is that moment at the beginning of a map where you're visiting the Alchemist and adding new spells to your deck, after which, the map is solved because you've likely bought something broken. For example, during my last map I bought an Enchantment that once casted, prevent enemies without flying to "untap" (allow me the MTG slang) for the rest of the combat, and 95% of the encounters in that map didn't had flyers. And I've seen this pattern in the other maps I've played as well - you buy few key cards at the start, and then you're left with grid…

Etherlords, developed and published by Nival, is one of those rare strategy games that feels genuinely experimental, even years after its release. It attempts to fuse two complex systems—turn-based map strategy and collectible card-style combat—into a single cohesive experience. The result is a game that doesn’t always flow perfectly, but remains memorable for how boldly it blends its ideas. Rather than following a conventional formula, Etherlords builds its identity around this hybrid structure, asking players to think both like a strategist and a deck-builder at the same time. The game unfolds across two distinct layers. On the overworld map, you guide heroes across terrain, capture resources, and expand your influence in a way that will feel familiar to fans of classic turn-based strategy games. This layer introduces a sense of scale and progression, giving context to your actions and decisions. However, the real centerpiece emerges when battles begin, shifting the gameplay into a card-driven system where every move is dictated by the deck you’ve constructed. This transition between exploration and dueling is what defines the experience, creating a loop where preparation direct…

Russia's Heroes of Might and Magic. This is the game that landed Nival the job developing HoMM5. The similarities are hard to ignore. Visually, you'd struggle to tell the difference, perhaps except for the much darker color palette. The interface is very similar too, the circular action-menu, the chunky buttons. In terms of the gameplay there's plenty of differences though. Just like in HoMM you have castles and heroes, but here there's very little castle-management. It's much more focused on moving around the map, fighting and leveling-up. To give the credit where it's due, the game does a great job at keeping things concise and intuitive. The way you would pick between two skills upon level-up in HoMM3, you pick between three skills here. The game doesn't overwhelm you with hundreds of menus and submenus, everything is very self-explanatory and takes seconds to figure out. The combat, which is this game's main focus, is very different from HoMM. First of all, you don't move around the battlefield, much like in Disciples. Second of all, you have to summon all your creatures. And lastly, but most importantly, your skills (including the summoning ones) are given out to you like c…

[h1]Get the game working properly with these few steps[/h1] https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2689529265 I love having a new card game to explore, though I think the multiplayer-oriented design doesn't always apply well to the singleplayer campaign (which is probably the main thing you'd play). The game features a lot of RNG to keep you on your toes, but in the campaign, if one of your heroes dies, you'll reload the last quicksave anyways, so losing because of bad rng (hand, abilities with % chance, etc) is usually a total waste of time if you're already familiar with the enemy deck. Still a very fine and fresh card game, with the luxury of custom creatures, 3d models and animations.

Wont even start

Starts only in 800x600 with less than 1 FPS. Unplayable.