Warhammer 40000: Gladius – Relics of War

Great and fun game, each faction has its own units and playstyle. Dev support is still going strong. It’s a must if you enjoy combat focused strategy games. Highly recommended.

How would a Civilization game look like if it would be set in Warhammer 40K universe? The answer lies in Warhammer 40000: Gladius - Relics of War. You build cities, gather resources, and develop technologies, however, you should forget about diplomacy, since everything alive on the map is your enemy. So don’t expect peace treaties or alliances unless you’ve enabled team mode at the start of the game. And what would a world of eternal war be without eternal war? Nur totaler und endloser Krieg!

In Gladius, players choose from four initial factions—Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard), Space Marines, Orks, and Necrons—each with unique units, technologies, and playstyles. Unlike traditional 4X games, Gladius focuses exclusively on warfare, omitting diplomacy and trade elements. The gameplay involves exploring a randomly generated hex-grid map, expanding territory, exploiting resources, and exterminating rival factions.

The game offers both single-player and multiplayer modes, including hotseat play. Players can engage in battles against AI opponents or compete with others online.

Overall, Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War offers a combat-focused strategy experience that may appeal to fans of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, though it may not satisfy players seeking the full range of traditional 4X gameplay elements.

7/10
DISASTER | BAD | MEDIOCRE | OKAY | GOOD | GREAT |AMAZING| MASTERPIECE

Reviewed on: Win11 Home 64-bit, Intel i5-11600K, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB TUF, 32GB DDR4-3600 RAM, 2 x Kingston NV1 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD, Internet Broadband 300/50 Mbit

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I love this game so much man. It's really a lot of fun. Even if you aren't a fan of 40k this is a really good game. The problem is a lot of people are going to buy this game thinking its something it isn't. Despite what the steam page says and what other people might say, this NOT a 4X game. As insane as it might sound, this is essentially a turn based RTS. And its really fun that way.
If you've ever been into RTS's but get nervous playing ladder, or have trouble with micro; this is your game. A regular Gladius game plays almost exactly like a RTS random map game, you expand to get resources, research techs, unlock units, build production, and fight your enemies. There will be a lot of fighting from the very start of the game. A lot of RTS's are like this, 4X games not so much. You'll push enemy bases, fight for map control, and for side objectives. There is no diplomacy. No win conditions that don't include defeating enemies in combat. If all that sounds fun, this is your game.
One other thing to mention is the story. You can choose to play matches with story quests on to, as the name suggests, play with through the faction's story. What the option doesn't tell you is that if you're new, playing with story quests on makes the game like 10x more difficult. The story quests will routinely spawn enemy armies on top of your bases and units with absolutely no warning. If you already know what will happen with the story quests, then it's not a big deal. But when you're new, learning the game, and don't know the quest you're about to complete will spawn 20 enemy units next to your capital when you're busy fighting an AI opponent. You're screwed. So I would strongly recommend playing through the game at least once without the story quests before trying to do the story stuff.
Lastly, I want to mention the DLC. A lot of people don't like it. But they go on sale pretty frequently and you know what prices you're willing to accept. None of the DLC's are mandatory. The introduce new factions and units. If you don't want a faction or certain units, you don't have to buy it. No mechanics are being locked behind a DLC.

Okay if you can get it cheap.
Its HEAVILY based on Civilization 6, but don't expect that level of depth with the strategy elements. It's Civ with a greater focus on combat, as such I do enjoy the combat more than Civ 6 (Not exactly a high bar however.)
So if you want a faster paced, more combat oriented game of civ without diplomacy or culture or any of the other gubbins, its fun for a game or two here or there.
My biggest complaint is how few factions are in the base game. 4 is dreadfully few, especially in a game that goes up to 16 players. I know they all play distinctly different and every unit is unique to them so it takes longer to make a new faction for this than it does for games like Civ where most factions are just different flavors of the core game with one or two unique units, but chaos space marines and tyranids at launch would have made the game a lot more fleshed out, a bit more varied and more worth the original asking price.

Nothing is balanced and it should be kept that way. Fun game to play with friends. Pick it up on sale but not a full price kind of game.

I was never a fan of any kind of turn-based strategy game before playing Gladius. That said, this is hands down one of the most fun, addicting and satisfying games to play on the market. Sure, it's old, it's spaghetti code. But it's modable, its versatile, and in its own right its simple.
It also receives updates regularly, still. It's genuinely fun and has definitely got me deeper into the hole that is Warhammer 40K.