Zodiac Legion, another fantasy Game inspired by X-COM

[Galdred]

Hey there!
I didn't know about @Nikita_sakov's game until a very recent date, so I started writing my own fantasy X-COM game a long time ago, around 2014.
In Zodiac Legion, you lead an order of arcane knights, dedicated to protect the heirs of the ancient Empire from the wizards of the league.
As magic depends on astral configuration, and the last emperor went a bit overboard with its use, it had been depleted for centuries, but there is a new conjunction, and it starts flowing again.
Given that magic had became a fairy tale, and the Empire had split into several small kingdoms, the Zodiac Legion has been terribly underfunded.
You are tasked with recovering and studying ancient tomes to harness the power of the zodiac constellations, and find the way to craft new artifacts of power.

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The Zodiac Legion

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The opposing forces:

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The geoscape prototype:

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What I wanted to convey from X-COM was the progression, from a low magic force to a high magic one, and the sheer brutality, where you can go home with 8 dead out of 12 characters, and feel like the mission was a success.
However, it is also an age of heroes, so once a character gets strong enough, he can become one of the Zodiac Champions, and get access to one of the recovered zodiac artifacts.
Ascending and moon signs will grant access to some powers from other classes.
We will have small "commando" missions where 6 characters can be teleported, and larger ones that can be done with a group of 12.
Unlike X-COM, there will be a single fortress to design, while the secondary outposts will have very stripped down options (because we imagined it as Castle Grayskull, ie, the seat of power of the Zodiac Order, and the lose condition of the game).

Currently, the tactical battles need some polishing (LoS clean-up, more victory conditions, different AI for different opponents and missions), but it is almost "done".
The geoscape, however is in a state of constant flux.

[Solarius Scorch]

Whoa.

While obviously I can't say anything about the game as such, the graphics are stunning. The visuals really convey late 90's style in a very nice quality. Exciting!

[Galdred]

Thank you!
Regarding trying the game, it should be featured for the next Steam demo festival (so before summer). I just need to cobble a "prologue" with some geoscape elements around the tactical levels.

[Galdred]

TheEdmon made a pre-alpha preview here:

Beware the loud music at the beginning.
I could comment on the issues of the game build, but they will be self apparent. I hope you still enjoy it!

[NancyGold]

Looks like it is completely different from my attempt

Will it have leveling up and classes, like Final Fantasy Tactics? If yes, how are you planning to mitigate experience grinding?

[Galdred]

Looks like it is completely different from my attempt

Will it have leveling up and classes, like Final Fantasy Tactics? If yes, how are you planning to mitigate experience grinding?

It is a good thing, because your attempt looks really impressive (with the extended terraforming).
Yes, it will have leveling up and classes. In order to mitigate experience grinding, I will use a system similar to the ranks in X-COM, but give them way more importance:
The character "standard progression" will be classless (kind of), characters will follow a "player defined profession templates" at early level (so you can decide how your archers will train, but won't allocate points for individual ones). Then become fully customizable as they become full brothers of the order.
Then, the highest ranked ones will have the opportunity to become champion or master of one of the 13 Zodiac order.
This will give them benefits on top of their skill (and potentially much stronger than their skills).
The benefits granted by the Zodiac order will depend on the magic research conducted, and the artifacts crafted/recovered.
So when Master Libra dies, another one takes the mantle and inherits all the benefits, but not the mundane skills of his predecessor.
But my intent is to make the end game (once a good part of the research tree has been researched) Zodiac powers much stronger than the regular skill up, so a lvl 3 Master of Leo will be slightly weaker than a lvl 8 Master, but he will still be much more powerful than a lvl8 champion, or a lvl 8 "standard brother of the order".
 
The number of masters will be limited to 1 per sign (and probably 1 champion, but I am not sure of that). I will also remove kill XP, because I don't want to give incentive to random killing, so it will be entirely based on the number of missions, their difficulty, and their outcome (or the time spent training at the stronghold while other completed the mission).

[Galdred]

The game not got a trailer. It was first played yesterday among the Guerrilla Collective:

[Galdred]

We also made a let's play video, showcasing the tactical part of the game (on one level):

[Galdred]

Hey,
We added a small dungeon crawling demo to our Steam page if you want th check it out (and leave feedback, because everyone is very silent!).
It is still lacking in the QoL department and the pacing is still a bit off in some missions:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/812910/Zodiac_Legion/

[Galdred]

Splattercat made a cool presentation video of our game here:

[Deven1995]

Zodiac Legion is a game that was inspired by the movie “The Lord of the Rings”. In this game, players are given a character from each Birthday zodiac sign and they have to fight against other characters from their own zodiac sign. Players can choose between two different classes; Warriors and Mages. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses. Warriors are good at melee combat and are strong in physical attacks while mages are better at casting spells and using magic.

[Galdred]

Zodiac Legion is a game that was inspired by the movie “The Lord of the Rings”. In this game, players are given a character from each zodiac sign and they have to fight against other characters from their own zodiac sign. Players can choose between two different classes; Warriors and Mages. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses. Warriors are good at melee combat and are strong in physical attacks while mages are better at casting spells and using magic.

Hi, and thank you for your summary, Mr Summary bot!
The game has little relation to "the Lords of the Rings" movie. Actually, when I started, I wanted to make a fantasy X-COM. However, there are a lot of things that don't work the same way at all when a large part of the warriors use melee, so we ended up with something quite different, and I would say our combat is closer from Blood Bowl or Descent: Journeys in the Dark now.
So the main X-COM element is now the interaction between the geoscape (kingdom building), and the turn-based missions.

Regarding the lore, we drew from multiple sources of inspiration:
I cannot deny being influence by Saint-Seiya when it comes to having champions with powers coming from zodiac constellations!
But we drew from mythology(some of the opponents are satyres and minotaures, but in a way, we could say we were also influenced by Games Workshop)  and history :
The Zodiac order is organized like the medieval chivalric holy orders, while its opponents are a loose confederation with characteristics from the hanseatic league or the Holy Roman Empire (ie, very loose organization, with strong intra faction rivalry, but huge combined power).

Regarding Zodiac signs, characters will indeed have one sign (the player has some choice in the matter), and these signs will function as sub-class archetypes (Taurus would lean into the barbarian archetype, while Aquarius would be closer from an elementalist), but you can customize them to some extent, by your choice of perks (some perks will be common to several signs according to their element or characteristics, other will be specific to a single one), or with their secondary ascending sign.

The opponents work differently, because it is easier to have them with fixed stats with slight variations than to have each opponent being unique (as it would be a mess to guess the abilities of each at first glance).

[NancyGold]

1. X-COM
 X-COM was a strategy game developed by legendary designer Sid Meier and released in 1994...

Wait!! That is factually incorrect. XCOM is a spinoff of Warhammer 40k franchise, and was designed by Rick Priestley!!!

[Galdred]

Wait!! That is factually incorrect. XCOM is a spinoff of Warhammer 40k franchise, and was designed by Rick Priestley!!!

Haha, I'm still trying to get the meaning behind the message before. Funnily, some things are not too off the mark. You will play the commander in Zodiac Legion indeed, and as a medieval commander, he is expected to get his hands (and sword) dirty.