Siege Survival Gloria Victis is based on the same world as Gloria Victis, the open-world medieval MMORPG.
The game blends classic resource management with a survival strategy to create something very interesting and unique and honestly not like anything I have ever played before.
Even though the game itself is unique, it’s not too difficult to pick up, which is great, as we can jump straight into the action, making the hard choices of saving our villagers or soldiers.
Siege Survival's Story
Siege Survival Gloria Victis is based in a medieval city, which has fallen to an enemy siege, players take control of several survivors who have managed to secure the cities keep and must do what they can to hold the keep while awaiting reinforcements.
As the story unfolds, players must immediately make important choices, which will affect the course of the game, right from the start, adding an interesting start to the game, straight away.
Builder by day, scavenger by night
Siege Survival Gloria Victis changes the format of the game depending on the time of day, during the day, players build and create items to help produce food and water as well as supplies, by night, players must go out to the besieged city to scavenge for supplies.
You scavenge at night so you are not as easily seen by invaders, but players must still take care not to be seen by enemies, double-clicking the mouse for example will make you move faster, but at the expense of noise, making it easier for you to be spotted.
During the day, you can speed up time, making building tasks complete quicker, which at the start you might find useful to speed up some tasks, but as you take control of more people, you will likely find yourself needing to micro-manage more, and thus needing to skip time less often.
Resource management taken to the next level
I have played a lot of games where resource management plays a big part in the game, but none are as important as resource management in Siege Survival.
As with many games, we must ensure there is enough food and water, but it’s not just our characters we need to look after, we must also provide for the soldiers, who are in the keep and fighting each day to keep the beseeched castle going.
Providing food or water to your soldiers will mean your villagers might go without, and vice versa if you provide food or water to your villagers.
This is without a doubt one of the hardest parts of Siege Survival Gloria Victus, in fact, I’ve found myself restarting multiple times in an effort to try and perfect the balance of resource distribution between villagers and soldiers.
Of course, it’s not just food and water we need to worry about, there are other items needed to keep the soldiers in the battle, such as repairing weapons and armor.
So many games fail when trying to make difficult resource management fun, often making it feel more like a choir than a game, but the consequences of getting it wrong in Siege Survival kept me coming back for more, eager to prove to myself that I could save everyone.
Summary
The idea of a game so focused on resource management is something that I would normally steer clear of, it’s become all too common that games aim to make these concepts challenging, which results in frustrating gameplay.
I’m glad that I went against my own judgment here and decided to give Siege Survival Gloria Victis a try, for once we finally get a game where there isn’t room for error, each choice you make tips the balance between life and death.
There is no linear right or wrong answers with how to play, being too soft on your villages and providing for their needs will result in your keep being overrun and your cities demise, but too much attention to your soldiers will result in villagers failing to meet the need of the soldiers.
The main focus is to keep things ticking over as best you can, while you wait for reinforcements to come and save you from the ongoing attack. So far I’ve not managed to pull it off yet, but I can honestly say I have had a blast trying, and will keep going until I know my city is saved.
