GC22: The Valiant watched – Real-time tactics at the time of the Crusades – News

A medieval tactical RTS is The Valiant by Kite Games, distributed by THQ Nordic. It is set between the fourth and fifth crusade in the 13th century. You won’t lead armies of knights and peasants into battle, as in Medieval, for example, but about half a dozen squads per mission. The 16 handmade, according to the developers, very varied missions (some linear, others very open) are linked via a world map, the solo campaign should take about 15 to 20 hours. Kite Games is not aiming for a simulation, there are no flaming balls or other magic, but there are some mystical elements. This includes the aim of the game: it is important to prevent the artefact “Staff of Aaron”, which was shattered into three parts, from being reassembled by the wrong hands.

As usual with real-time tactics, you will not build a base. Rather, you choose your squad at the beginning of the battle. There are five heroes that you will learn more about as the game progresses, and they will be fully voiced. There is Reinhard as a captain, a cynical old warhorse, or Gascogne, who comes from impoverished nobility and wants to become a knight. Each of the five has three skill trees that shouldn’t overlap and with which you can customize the fighters. These include active and passive skills, but also bonuses that make all swordsmen in the “army” fight better. Everyone has three slots for equipment (where you can choose two weapons).

Before a typical mission, you choose one or two of the five heroes, another is sometimes predetermined, and then there are about two to four other squads, which are called mercenaries. They belong to a troop type such as cavalry, spearmen or crossbowmen, do not level up and should be chosen according to the mission. You will lead a maximum of eight squads (heroes and mercenaries together) into battle.

When I ask the protagonist to take cavalry as auxiliary troops three times, his colleagues almost collapse (one or two spearmen make mincemeat out of cavalry), but he stoically implements my request and later smiles: “I knew that there weren’t any in the mission are spearmen”. “Colleague: Yes, there was a squad on the bottom right, but luckily Reinhard defeated it.”

Each squad has a white bar that represents its protection (shield/armor) and a blue one that is life energy. Normally only the latter can be refreshed during a battle if there is a camp on the map, but some special abilities even allow the protection value to be repaired. Much depends on the interaction of the unit types and the attacks from the side or from behind, cavalry, for example, has a “trample attack” (adjustable with a wide arrow).

The Hero Units and certain Elite Units shown in purple build up Retribution through damage, which they then convert into a “Vengeance” special attack, a massive attack. You have to play with that too. If heroes die in battle, they come back after a while, but with few hitpoints and therefore no entourage. If all heroes die in a fight, it’s game over.

I experience two example missions, a few moments on the world map and the journal, which tells the story with audio text and b/w graphics. In addition, each mission begins with an in-game cutscene. The first mission (in which I asked for cavalry as the only mercenary type) was a simple “kill all”, which the previous player also routinely did. The second was open and offered checkpoints to conquer – a clear indication of the secret paragon Dawn of War 2, which was mentioned several times. These places on the map give us resources, for example for a catapult or a trebuchet, which then allows us to breach the fortress wall. The damage system should be dynamic, so there are no scripted parts of the wall that come to mind.

In addition to the solo campaign, there is a New Game+ with new items that is supposed to be “insanely harder”, as well as two types of multiplayer: In PvP you fight over control points, which you can then use to recruit more heroes. A warcamp allows upgrades for units, so that, for example, a unit can refresh its protection value again. Badges and the option to paint your troops a different color await as a reward. Secondly, there should be a co-op mode based on the model of “Last Stand” from Dawn of War 2: It should take 15 to 18 hours to climb the 20 ranks that this mode offers.

The Valiant looks interesting, but the real-time aspect scares me a little: Sure, you usually only have five or six squads to lead, and they’re very detailed – but will I be able to make the right clicks under time pressure to put? However, I like the idea of ​​the gruff warhorses, and I really like the very detailed graphics.