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!

It is like Civilization and Age of Wonders had a baby. And that baby ended up spending every day in its parents' basement playing Warhammer 40k.

I think I got my money's worth.

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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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.