Songs of Conquest is a modern version of the classic Heroes of Might and Magic. While the gameplay loop is familiar – heroes build armies, scour the map for treasure, resources and artifacts, then conquer opponents or capture waypoints - Conquest is more than just a nostalgic game with similar mechanics. Lavapotion’s focus on gameplay, characters, unit designs, map layout, beautiful music and a 2.5D pixel art style, have created a world rich in story and variety that’s unique to the genre.


Upon launching the game, you have a number of modes to choose from…

Campaigns & Tales are relatively short narrative driven stories designed primarily as a tutorial to familiarize the player with each faction.

Conquest maps offer dozens of handcrafted maps, some very challenging Puzzle maps, and Random “template” maps for endless replayability.

Community maps are accessible through a third-party (Mod.io), which is highly questionable because of their required automatic account creation (no, thank you), and sketchy history. Why not use Steam Workshop for a simple “map”, I don’t know, but if you are very curious about seeing what other players have created you can download them manually(*) without any login and simply save the file in the appropriate location.

* Many of these community maps and campaigns are very creative, adding plenty of replay value to the game, so I do recommend trying them out.

Multiplayer offers a number of choices to connect with other players, including a hotseat option so you can play as multiple factions on a map.

The Map Editor lets you build your own map or campaign. I used this to help with unlocking a couple of the “grindy” steam achievements.


Factions are unique both in thematic flavor and unit design. While they each have melee/range fighters, no single unit is completely identical. While some share a similar primary mechanic, like burrowing underground or dashing across the battlefield, their secondary ability is completely different. The number of units each Wielder can carry is also capped, which eliminates the need to micromanage huge armies. It quickly becomes apparent that some units are "better" than others but each one has their pros and cons so no single unit type is really overpowering.

Magic, on the other hand, can seem OP and adds to the strategic layer of the game. Spells can buff your relatively weak army and win against larger enemy forces using de-buffs and field control while also shooting the occasional direct-damage spells. Magic essence is generated from each unit, as well as other things like artifacts and upgrades, so for the most part it’s not something you need to build your army around since every Wielder from each faction uses the same list of magic spells.

Wielders, of course, are unique heroes who all have different specialties that buff certain units or abilities. Everyone chooses random skills as they upgrade but some will lean more toward Magic skills while others will see more Combat skills to pick from. The myriad of artifacts in the game also adds to the countless variety of upgrades a Wielder can have. However, because of the sheer volume of artifacts, it can be cumbersome organizing them among your heroes given how your characters’ inventory has no sorting function.

Beyond these basics, Conquest gives the player a lot of control over the different variables you can adjust on a map from starting resources, to number of Wielders, enemy growth rate, field-of-view size and more. Combined with adjusting A.I. difficulty, color, faction and teams - there is so much you can experiment with.


It’s clear Lavapotion were heavily inspired by HoMM. Songs of Conquest is a simple game with a design philosophy that's straight-to-the-point, well crafted, well balanced, and story-rich with enough variety and choices for hours of fun, leaving plenty of room for the game to grow.

Long War of the Chosen 1.1 is the latest update to the popular Long War mod adapted for XCOM 2: War of the Chosen. This was a great opportunity to try Long War again, only this time to experience it with a myriad of other mods. Encouraged by Christopher Odds new season 8 play-through, I was meticulous in my selection since the recent update incorporates many features of older mods. While not as extreme as other players, this is the most mods I have played with, and I’m happy to report everything worked.

LWotC is different from Long War for the original XCOM: Enemy Unknown / (Enemy Within). Because the game’s lore shifts focus with you being a Resistance movement instead of a global military force, and because you now have Rebel Havens to manage, your gameplay loop goes something like this:

1) Equip fighters and organize them into squads

2) Send your squads to “infiltrate” select missions

3) Begin combat once infiltration completes

4) Use Intel and Supplies to upgrade your base & equipment

5) Manage Havens to gather supplies, intel, new recruits or go into hiding

In addition, you need to focus your attention on eliminating The Chosen, contacting new territories, operating covert missions and keeping the Avatar project from completing. This game really lives up to the name “Long War”. What really stood out to me with the new 1.1 patch was the variety and enormous number of enemies I encountered. I faced over 100 unique Advent and Alien units, including a Chryssalid Hive Queen, which was originally introduced in a separate mod called The Hive. Talk about terrifying!

Unlike the first Long War, where I said in my review how that mod really made the game feel like the ultimate form of XCOM, LWotC is not an evolution but rather an alternative. It massively overhauls the game with new soldier classes, perk trees, equipment stats, mission types, pod encounters, etc. But really only adds one new mechanic in the form of Havens. So it really comes down to how you want to play…the War of the Chosen expansion already completes XCOM 2 while the modding community continually adds to the game.

The choice is yours, Commander.

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<< Original Review >>

XCOM 2 improved on the foundation of what made this new XCOM special.
XCOM 2: War of the Chosen & Tactical Legacy expansions finally complete the franchise, making this one of the best (if not 'the' best) tactical turn-based strategy games I have ever played. It's not surprising to see many similar games adapting XCOM's style of gameplay and mechanics. When reviews and articles compare them to XCOM, that alone should tell you how successful / influential this game has become.

On its own, XCOM 2 is simply an improved or expanded version of XCOM, building on what made the first one work and adding more "features". Whether you love or hate it, what really sells this game for many fans are the MODS. So many Mods, there's practially a Mod for every mechanic and cosmetic in the game. So even if you finish the game, or never felt like it managed to reach it's true potential, you can bet the Modding community has you covered with more than enough content to play for many more hours - at least until XCOM 3.