When it comes to 4X strategy games, everyone knows you have to take your time with them and plan out your strategies to get to the top of the pile. Anyone who has played a Civilization game can recount the hours that mysteriously disappear while playing, for example. What if there was a way to take the depth of 4X strategy games, and streamline the experience so matches would last around an hour max? That is a question developer Main Tank Games has attempted to answer with its 4x deckbuilder Hexarchy.
Hexarchy will look familiar to those with experience of the more famous 4X tactical games. Maps are made up of hexes, but are smaller in scope meaning different civilisations are bunched up together. Each hex has different resources and defensive ratings, with resources exploitable depending on which technologies you have. There is a different way to play Hexarchy and that is by using cards to make your moves. The first card you will play is establishing your capital city, and from there more possibilities open up. You could draw a scout card to explore the land, or a settler card to establish another city. There are military unit cards too with more available as the game goes on.
Decks are filled with various card types including technology, wonders, civics, buildings, and the aforementioned military units. When technology cards are played they add new cards to your deck, and while wonders provide boosts, civics determine how your government runs, and buildings help to gather the resources on the different hexes. There is no turn countdown on how long a unit or building will take to build, its effects happen immediately.
There are costs, though. At the start of each turn your hand is shuffled and you are given a set amount of hammers. The better you are doing, the more hammers you get. Hammers are the base currency to play any card, but some cards will require additional resources or gold. Gold is also used to maintain the units in the field. Deck management is key to having a successful run. Having too many cards means it becomes harder to pull the cards you may need for specific turns. You can burn cards in exchange for hammers, and you can also buy cards with gold.
There is no sitting down at the table and carrying out diplomatic talks with the other civilisations. The world of Hexarchy is one of war, and military strategy is key to making gains. That does not mean churning out units all the time. You may be able to hold a pass with a couple of units, pushing back and destroying other units. You will start with basic warriors and as more technology is unlocked more units will unlock, including swordsmen, catapults, and gunmen. These units can be promoted with particular cards, giving different boons such as more strength. Some units can claim hexes the are on, even if it is owned by another civilisation, which means expanding territory can happen quickly. A criticism here is that AI controlled civs seem to advance through technology faster than a player.
Hexarchy has different modes to play through. Hegemony has you pick a civilisation and complete challenges using them for a week. It is essentially a leaderboard of the different civilisations, with its score increasing through the actions of the players. Skirmish is then an offline mode, letting you pick any civilisation and playing against the AI to dominate. There are also daily and weekly challenges to take part in, competing for a place on the leaderboards while completing set objectives. In addition, you can go online and face off against other players to dominate the maps that are generated.
While Hexarchy looks good, it can sometimes feel a bit difficult to make out the resources on hexes. Units are blocky characters but you can easily tell by their equipment what they are. The card art is fantastic too and the UI is simple to navigate, helping to keep the flow of rounds going. One criticism would be the lack of ability to sail, or if there is one, it’s not obvious. A lot of the generated maps have water tiles so being able to sail them would offer additional tactical options for expansion. There is plenty to come back to because as a player you can level up, unlocking different civilisations to play as and titles to use on your player profile banner.
