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4X ZEPHON - post-apocalyptic 4X by Warhammer 40K: Gladius developer

LESS T_T

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Oct 5, 2012
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Codex 2014






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It looks very similar to Gladius. They likely reused many assets from that.

Grimdark survival strategy from the creators of Warhammer 40,000: Gladius
Humanity emerges, hesitantly, into ruination. Almost nothing is left of the world as we knew it—settlements, forests, seas, mountains—all have been blasted into unfamiliarity. Horribly mutated animals hunt in packs through deformed woodland. Decrepit military robots stumble unknowingly through the ruins, sensors and logic centres blown. Alien soldiers, once impossibly powerful, cower in the wrecks of their ships, praying to heedless gods for rescue.

On the planet Earth, that was once a cradle of life, the extinction of humanity is at hand.

What will you do to survive?

Next-generation survival wargame set on a destroyed world
Choose your past and wage war to ensure humanity’s survival between the abominations of the Voice and the automata of ZEPHON. Select a leader, gather your allies and choose your actions wisely—or suffer the consequences.

Key features:
  • Unique tactical battles. Let’s face it, 4X combat is often boring or shallow—not Proxy’s. Our complex, nuanced battle system means victory is a matter of skill, not brute numbers.
  • A complete 4X. Diplomacy, research, exploration, city-building—we’ve taken the fundamentals of 4X and shaken them up. Drop the assumptions you have from other games in the genre.
  • Post-apocalyptic horror survival. Drag your civilization through a grimdark future—survive unexpected events while eldritch horrors and cyberpunk monstrosities derail your progress. Because that’s the game we wanted to play.

It looks like developer's attempt to make and publish their own game with the systems they made, without the license and the publisher. This is self-published, no Slitherine.
 
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Hobo Elf

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Interesting choice to go solo. I missed the AMA that they just hosted so I'm not sure if they said why they did that. Pandora and Gladius were both published by Slitherine and all. From the sound of things it seems like they will put a lot more emphasis on neutral faction content, which is nice. I always thought that 4X games that skimp on neutral factions were missing out. It does look very similar to Gladius, but art stuff usually gets done and polished more toward to end so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it was just placeholder assets being reused, but who knows.
 

Beowulf

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"Neutral" (actually hostile) AI played a big part in Gladius, here's hope they build on that.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
According to one of the devs the game is being co-funded by the EU so that's one reason why they don't have a publisher.
Gladius was also a big hit, so they probably are in a more sustainable position now. Slitherine is a big brand, but they focus most of their marketing on a few WW2 titles, and some big licenses. Maybe they wanted to go with an original IP instead, and didn't need the funding and brand anymore ?
 

TemplarGR

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If it is anything like Gladius, i am getting the game day 0. I am very satisfied with Gladius, it is my favourite 4X game, lots of warhammer 40 battle fun and no "useless diplomacy" garbage like civ. I also love the fact that Proxy provides STELLAR Linux native support and Vulkan.
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1481170/view/2954912242027806060

ZEPHON Voice Path Reveal
Voice Path
A mysterious creed followed by certain Acrin and human mystics, its followers experiment with total sensory deprivation to get closer to true cosmic understanding. Those who achieve this inner silence, can finally hear something in the background of the universe—something infinitely ancient and wise—that they call The Voice.

The path of The Voice is the path of universal comprehension, hidden secrets, inhuman understanding, physical corruption and ancient wisdom. Your progress is idealistic, but leaves many monstrosities in its wake—failed mystics or those who understand The Voice only partially, and are changed utterly by this shortcoming.

Abkluth Dragoon
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When they crashed, the Acrin brought creatures with them—monstrous lizardthings, tearing Earth wildlife apart. Given their docility around the Acrin, I suspect they were meant for pets or food, but that didn't stop the Voice Cults using them for war.


The first specialised unit of any Voice affiliation, this cavalry troop consists of three Cult Militants mounted on the fearsome alien Abkluth. Their light armour means that they can’t survive prolonged firefights, so instead rely on their speed to close on enemies before they attack with their toxic spears and bite. Understandably, they are also experts in taming free-roaming Abkluth, allowing Voice-aligned players to increase their armies quickly.

Dark Vassael
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Not all who hear the Voice can comprehend it. Not all come back from the edge. Or not alone. Is it better to come back like this—a bag of aggregated human systems and minds—or not at all? What must it be like to be in there?


This horrifying agglomeration of man and alien is a Voice terror unit. Its strange weapon fires living larvae that do limited damage but cause enemy units to suffer morale debuffs, reducing their ability to fight back. Later in the game, the Vassael can summon Shoch’itris Lairs that deploy short-lived deformities which attack on their behalf.

Aegyllan Worm
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Hearing the Voice didn't change everyone the same. Some kept looking for that dark, quiet place, came back changed to find it, delving into the black depths of the Earth. To see a friend's face on one of these, dragging itself out of stone and dirt, that was hard.


The Aegyllans are best deployed as shock anti-armour troops. Their tunneling ability allows them to bypass terrain, defenses and other units—especially when upgraded in the late game to massively increase its range. Once at a target, their pointblank bioacid is exceptional against armoured units and large numbers of troops—and damages their armour too, allowing your other troops to finish them with ease.
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
I'm hoping for a campaign this time around. Custom games are fun and all, but they quickly get samey.
 
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Hobo Elf

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I'm hoping for a campaign this time around. Custom games are fun and all, but they quickly get samey.
Unfortunately it's not gonna happen. The campaigns in Gladius, as far as the devs were concerned, were the missions you could do for each faction as a victory condition. That's about as much as you'll get this time around as well. Anything more would probably be beyond the scope of what the devs are able to provide and they have a respectable online PvP community which is whom they mainly serve and a campaign doesn't feed into that.
 

Hobo Elf

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they have a respectable online PvP community

What?
There's a lot of activity in the Gladius discord channel where people organize matches and tourneys on the regular. Almost every single balancing act that the game has seen has been done with online play in mind. Single player is secondary to the devs, which is unfortunate because this is still one of the better modern single player turn based strategy games.
 
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TemplarGR

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There's a lot of activity in the Gladius discord channel where people organize matches and tourneys on the regular. Almost every single balancing act that the game has seen has been done with online play in mind. Single player is secondary to the devs, which is unfortunate because this is still one of the better modern single player turn based strategy games.

How many people are participating in that community? I regularly look at the available online games and online appears dead....
 

Hobo Elf

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There's a lot of activity in the Gladius discord channel where people organize matches and tourneys on the regular. Almost every single balancing act that the game has seen has been done with online play in mind. Single player is secondary to the devs, which is unfortunate because this is still one of the better modern single player turn based strategy games.

How many people are participating in that community? I regularly look at the available online games and online appears dead....
From what I've seen most of the games hosted there are private. I only joined so that I could be in the forefront for updates from the devs and not to play online, but every time I look there are daily messages of people advertising new games. I'm lucky enough to have a group of irl friends to play with but you can give it a try if you're interested.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Thanks for flagging the demo, need to try it out today. For whatever reason (I don't like Gladius) I'm pretty excited for this game, particularly after how AoW4 turned out. We are really due a good, fresh 4X, aren't we.
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
Zephon is basically Gladius with diplomacy and only an expanded imperial guard as a playable faction. It has some added stuff like narrative events that give you bonuses or maluses, but they are extraneous imo.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Yeah, tried the demo and it's a Gladius reskin with improved visual fidelity and potentially a slightly interesting setting. Meh.
 

Removal

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new demo released with the AI faction added and another PC hero to select. Diplomacy seems to depend pretty heavily on your hero you select at the start, for example the raiders hate the immortal hero and AI faction likes the new hero(human AI)
the biggest issue is how they're gonna differentiate this from Gladius. Setting is cool at least.
 
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Sounds interesting. I read it up and the concept seems interesting. I think I can even run it on my ol' warmachine.

I always thought Post-Apocalypse was woefully under-used in 4X. The only Post-Apoc 4X experiences I remember are mods, like:

- Thorgrimm's Fallout: Rebirth of Civlization for Fallout 3[1]
- Fury Road mod for Civilization IV
- Fallout mod for Civilization IV (kinda embrionary imho but I really liked how it stimulated raider/pillager gameplay)

(The Fallout mods for Hearts of Iron Darkest Hour and HOI4, and After The End for CKII don't count, they're GSG. But Post-Apoc is under-used there too)

[1] Probably the best post-apoc experience in a 4X so far, even if it was sadly saddled to Civilization III. Honestly I played it more than vanilla CivIII, which barely appealed to me. Hm, I wonder where Thorgrimm ended up - I haven't seen him on the internet for over a decade, I suspect he has died.
 

Jeskis

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