B4 You Buy Spellforce: Conquest of Eo – Demon Scourge

Spellforce: Conquest of Eo – Demon Scourge (Steam Link) is the new DLC for last year’s innovative 4X game designed by Owned By Gravity. Much as the name implies, it centers on demons, introducing several new aspects to the game related to both using and fighting them and some content related to one of the core Spellforce races: Trolls. 

#1: The Crown Jewel is the Demonologist

Though there is a lot of great additional content featured in this DLC, the Demonologist is the main selling point of it. A 33% increase in the available mage types is significant, and the Demonologist quite ably justifies its existence without invalidating any of the base game mage types. 

The central conceit of the Demonologist is the idea of cults and cultists. Cults are tied to specific locations on the map and generate cultist resources that can be used as a baseline for building demons. Demons are used to possess units whose minds have been unlocked, giving them additional special powers based on the cult, which serves as the basis for the crafted demon, as well as the particular combination of thresholds and pips that feed into it with resources. These powers can be enhanced based on the amount of pips put into the demon when it is crafted. There are also additional conditions that can be met to level up your demons as well. Each unit can only be possessed by one demon, and when they die, the demon is returned to the inventory. One of the demons only levels up based on the death of the units it has possessed. 

The Demonologist also has access to an amalgamation process through room extensions to your wizard’s tower, which allows for the fusing together of two demons to make a combined, greater demon. The amalgamation can also take a cult and a demon to change the demon’s affiliation and, thus, one of its powers, or an artifact and a demon to cause a demon to possess an item that can be equipped. This gives a fair bit of flexibility and options later in the game. 

Also tied to the Demonologist is a new spell school, Occultism, which is appropriately demon-y but retains a fair bit of usability even if you don’t play a Demonologist. These spells allow access to a number of the new demon units added to the game. But these units largely retain the weakness that fantastic units already have, starting at a vital point but quickly being outclassed by regular units with a few levels. This would be fine if these summonses were more accessible and faster to get them than regular units, but they essentially… are not. 

The Demonologist is fun overall! I have had a lot of fun playing around with it, and the developers were able to implement it in the fun and creative ways that the studio showed off in the original release of Spellforce: Conquest of Eo. The only real complaint I have about the Demonologist is that the other classes seem relatively bland in comparison. It is not overwhelmingly more fun, and I imagine it is colored by the absurd amount of time I have playing the other wizard classes. Still, the Demonologist does seem to have a bit more juice than the classic Necromancer, Artificer, and Alchemist. 

#2: Demon Lords Serve as Fun Mid-Game Bosses

Regardless of whether you are playing as a Demonologist or not, the Demon Scourge DLC introduces a handful of powerful and unique enemies called Demon Lords who spawn on the map just past the early game, corrupting nearby locations and offering a few different ways to deal with them. The first is to punch them in the face, take their stuff (powerful artifacts that can level up), and make the Circle happy. The other is to help them achieve their specific goals, including sacrificing an apprentice to them, enslaving a large number of units, or even destroying a city in exchange for getting points toward triggering a win. 

These creatures are a terrific addition and make the world map more dynamic. It is not a great idea to ignore them, as their corruption can interfere with a fair-sized part of the map, and the rewards for dealing with them (either way) are good enough to make it just as much about getting fun and powerful rewards as it is about getting rid of an annoyance. The battles are fun and distinct, and the developers clearly spent time making sure that players would find demon lords worth engaging with. 

#3: Trolls May Secretly Be The Best Part of the DLC

The addition of an entire class of troll units is another element of the DLC that will be present regardless of whether the Demonologist is being used. They are either featured in the form of a quest line that will give access to free troll units but also some trouble or a particular city in the northwestern corner of the map that allows for both hiring them and earning a racial room in the wizard tower that enables them to be recruited the normal way. Both of these elements are fun, though the troll quest line has some frustration thrown in for good measure, and, as a big fan of unit variety, having a bunch of troll units to play around and potentially build armies around is a great bonus.

This is compounded even further by introducing a troll hero, Morgak. Heroes are such an impactful inclusion to how a run plays out that I welcome each one added to the game, and Morgak is no exception. His quest is fun, he is strong, and who doesn’t like the fantasy of having a powerful mage with a gigantic troll general leading his troops?  

#4: The Base Game Experience Is Largely Untouched

Almost everyone I know who enjoys Spellforce: Conquest of Eo has a small wish list of things they wish it had, like fully randomized map generation, built-in mod support, and near-mandatory quest locations not starting in the middle of the water. Unfortunately, none of these are included as part of this DLC. The one exception is the Customize Stories screen at the start of the game. This now enables major story content to be turned off and allows the player to choose which hero they get, rather than slowly and painstakingly turning heroes down until a specific one shows up. 

This is a bit disappointing, but I imagine the choice to do this was made at the publisher rather than the developer level, and because we got DLC at all, it was a pleasant surprise. I don’t find myself particularly upset about this. Some base game redesigns would be nice at this point, but they are far from mandatory. 

Conclusion

Spellforce: Conquest of Eo – Demon Scourge is lovely. It slots into the game in a way that feels natural and adds quite a bit to the overall amount of enjoyment that the game provides. I feel confident recommending the DLC to anyone who enjoys Spellforce: Conquest of Eo. It is unlikely to change the mind of anyone who didn’t enjoy the original game. Still, for those who did, it will be a tasty treat that leaves you wondering what might come further down the line if this DLC is successful enough to justify the production of more content for the game. 

Jesse James Dean

Jesse is another of our turn-based game aficionados and is often found playing many different types of turn-based games, whether they be strategy games, deck-builders, RPGs, and much more. He also really likes cats.