Hexarchy - where Polytopia meets Dominion

[Decline]

Right now is 'deckbuilder fest' on Steam and I randomly stumbled upon Hexarchy.



In this game Civilization meets Slay The Spire. You found cities, gather resources, discover the enemy and then beat him just like in any other Civilization style game. The twist is: You do not 'build' your units by putting them into a build queue, instead you draw a couple of cards from a deck that then determine your available actions on the board.

One game of Hexarchy is short, no more than 7-20 turns, no more than an hour of your time and highly competitive: every. turn. matters. This game takes the 'less is more' principle to the extreme. In every turn you will be deciding the fate of your nation by trying to exploit the hand you were given as much as possible.

Like in any deck builder luck plays a role but the game gives you enough tools to deal with it - if you are clever. Sacrificing cards often and early is required to keep the deck small and competitive but overdo it and you might lack a tool you would really love to have right now or worse yet - you sacrificed a tech card and can't tech up that particular part of the tree anymore. Generally, growing your nation in one area will cause problems in another and on top you have to anticipate your opponents move so balancing your deck is crucial.

This game is an example of sophisticated game design - how it should be done. That being said, this game is a competitive game, meaning you duke it out against other humans in multiplayer. For me, this game fills the same niche as the excellent Polytopia and Dominion, in fact it plays a lot like a fusion of these two games.




As for Singleplayer, the AI seems to be somewhat competent and suffices for learning the game but like in many games it starts to cheat in higher difficulty levels.

While the game nails design, the presentation is not quite there yet. I play on steam deck so interface scaling and controller support is a must. Of course then the interface is too tiny to read in some places and the controller support has room for improvement. On PC it's probably all OK.

In summary: If you like fast-paced competitive strategy games, this one is a must buy.

[Boontaker]

I can afford loaning steam $13 for 2 hours, I try

[Nooneatall]

Are there any deck builders that are good? It seems like such a cheap and mobile esque game mechanic that indies shit out

[rusty_shackleford]

Are there any deck builders that are good? It seems like such a cheap and mobile esque game mechanic that indies shit out

I don't think these are considered traditional deckbuilders, I tend to hate the genre but liked these.

[Decline]

Are there any deck builders that are good? It seems like such a cheap and mobile esque game mechanic that indies shit out

If you have never played a deck builder you should start with the OG Dominion, mentioned above. Note that deck builders are strategy games and the RPG deckbuilders are all rather awkward imo.

[Boontaker]

I have blown past the 2 hr refund timer. Game is good.

The intricacies of deck building plus 4x planning make for a very fun gameplay loop. Once you learn the different victory paths it gets easy to stomp the computer. I'm going to try some multiplayer today and see how it goes against player opponents.

The games also go pretty fast, the map settings determine victory point caps, or a turn timer if the cap isn't reached. It's an interesting conundrum when you have to decide to completely negate and entire tech line if it's not going to give you any meaningful bonuses within the next few turns. It's very easy to bloat your deck to over 40+ cards and in that scenario you can really screw yourself.

I have completed 2 conquest victories, I'm in the middle of a "tall" build game. Attempting to see if you can win without burning half the countryside.

[Decline]

It's very easy to bloat your deck to over 40+ cards and in that scenario you can really screw yourself.

If have found to stay competitive you need to hover around 10 card, 15 tops.
That basically requires you to be super shrewd and nuke many tech lines and many powerful cards.