Conquest of Elysium 5

About

Conquest of Elysium 5 is a single player and multiplayer turn-based strategy game with fantasy, medieval and historical themes. It was developed by Illwinter Game Design and was released on August 16, 2021. It received positive reviews from players.

Conquest of Elysium 5 is a quick turn based fantasy strategy game with a touch of rogue-like. The game is full of depth, details and monsters. There are also a huge number of factions, each with its own unique gameplay and magic rituals.

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89%

Audience ScoreBased on 1,461 reviews

gameplay58 positive mentions

grinding24 negative mentions

Extensive variety of unique factions with distinct playstyles and mechanics, offering great replayability.
Deep and complex strategy with emergent gameplay and rich lore, allowing for immersive and unique stories in each game.
Fast-paced turns and automated battles provide a less micromanagement-heavy, accessible experience while maintaining strategic depth.

Unforgiving RNG-heavy gameplay can cause sudden losses early on and impact enjoyment; maps and starting conditions are often unbalanced.
Poor UI and clunky, unintuitive controls combined with a lack of tutorial make the game difficult to learn for new players.
AI is generally weak, prone to dying early or not behaving strategically, which can frustrate players seeking competitive challenge.

gameplay
249 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
73%
4%
The gameplay of Conquest of Elysium 5 is deep, complex, and highly varied, featuring 24 unique factions each with distinct mechanics that profoundly alter playstyle. While its turn-based 4X and roguelike blend offers emergent, strategic gameplay with strong replayability, it is also criticized for steep learning curves, minimal tutorials, occasional tedium in pacing, and some frustrating RNG elements. Fans of intricate, lore-rich strategy games willing to invest time to master its systems will find it rewarding, though it may feel inaccessible or repetitive to newcomers or those expecting polished visuals and streamlined mechanics.
- “Real talk tho, this game is an absolute masterpiece, the mods are fun, base gameplay is fun, all in all is a wonderful experience I would recommend for veteran RTS games.”
- “The gameplay loop has a lot of variation with each of its classes and has a ton of content and replayability.”
- “Developed by Illwinter Game Design, this installment builds significantly on the foundation of the earlier titles in the series, offering a rich tapestry of gameplay mechanics and strategic options that appeal especially to fans of intricate, high-level strategy games.”
- “Conquest of Elysium 5 is a charming fantasy 4X game with unique mechanics and deep, complex systems, held back by minor foibles such as it being borderline unplayable.”
- “Your only hope for figuring this game's mechanics out is to download a mod that replaces the enemy players with passive observers who never attack, so you can dedicate your entire life to trying to keep the civilization barbarians under control.”
- “Any new player will be faced with six major problems: a lack of in-game documentation, the possibility of being destroyed by RNG at turn zero, generally unintuitive gameplay, awful AI, glacial pacing, and the reality that a 5-hour long game can easily result in literally nobody winning.”
graphics
148 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
21%
72%
7%
The graphics in the game are consistently described as simplistic, dated, and reminiscent of late-90s or early 2000s pixel art, often viewed as a trade-off for deep, intricate gameplay and rich strategic content. While some find the visuals unimpressive or even off-putting, others appreciate the functional, minimalist art style for its charm and clarity, emphasizing that the game's strength lies in substance over flashy visuals. Overall, the graphics serve the gameplay adequately but are unlikely to impress those expecting modern or high-fidelity aesthetics.
- “The graphics are utilitarian but watching the dynamics of the battles is fascinating nonetheless.”
- “The art style gets pretty good too, once you start seeing all the different sprites in movement.”
- “Tons of little reworks to make each race feel better to play, quality of life improvements, etc., and the improvement to graphics honestly makes the game feel so much nicer overall.”
- “Most of the time I say 'don't judge a game by its graphics', but the graphics are outright bad and they're a good indication of the underlying effort of hodge-podge design and coding.”
- “Bad UI, old-ass graphics, no tutorial, horrible balance, RNG heavy, stupid controls, barely any settings.”
- “[*] The graphics of this game, on my first interpretation, were that they looked like bare-minimum garbage.”
replayability
53 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
64%
36%
The game offers immense replayability through its wide variety of factions, classes, and procedural generation, ensuring each playthrough feels fresh and unique. Its deep mechanics, modding support, and randomly generated maps contribute to nearly endless content, appealing to both casual and hardcore strategy fans. Overall, players consistently praise its vast depth and high replay value.
- “Every bit as addictive as CK3 or Stellaris and just as replayable, but a good bit quicker to play.”
- “Steam Workshop integration enriches the experience by allowing users to create and share custom factions, maps, and scenarios, greatly extending replayability and community engagement.”
- “Fantastic strategy game with extremely deep mechanics and huge amounts of replay value.”
story
40 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
23%
69%
8%
The game excels as an emergent storytelling engine, offering unique, randomly generated worlds and rich lore that create highly replayable, personalized fantasy narratives with dynamic factions and events. While it lacks a traditional linear campaign or structured story mode, many players appreciate the organic, roleplay-driven stories that arise from gameplay, though some note that deeper engagement is needed to fully experience this. Overall, its story appeal lies in its sandbox nature and robust world-building rather than scripted plots.
- “Every game is a story about how Elysium is torn apart and conquered.”
- “The replayability is simply insane and there is a lot of potential for storytelling through a match (it feels more like a campaign).”
- “The game offers a rich lore that unfolds as you progress, immersing you in a captivating story that unravels the secrets of Elysium.”
- “Any campaigns or story modes are non-existent – Elysium is always a randomly generated map for every conquest.”
- “There isn't a story, or even events or really anything happening for that matter for the time I played. Maybe you need to get deeper in for that, but on this store page, it clearly states and builds up to the phrase 'your hands will be full before you even make contact with the enemy,' which is not true at all. All there is is the 'enemy.' All in all, you just select drawings then click on other drawings to make other drawings appear and occasionally buy more drawings (not even gonna include summoning because it is essentially the exact same thing as buying with coins just with different descriptions and sprites) and watch the AI's drawings go in circles.”
- “In 'Conquest' of Elysium you borrow resource nodes for the couple of pesos that plot gives, until a random deer or snake rolls into it and then is reclaimed by the wilds.”
humor
29 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game’s humor is widely praised for its witty writing, funny random events, and entertaining flavor text that enriches the lore and gameplay. Players enjoy the unexpected, often hilarious outcomes and quirky unit descriptions, which add charm and levity to the strategic experience. Overall, the humor enhances the immersive worldbuilding and makes the game enjoyable and memorable.
- “Has very funny random stuff that happens, like when my cultist army read a scroll and was sent to hell, only to then conquer it.”
- “Everything is ridiculously polished, and you can click on literally any rock and find easter eggs, often in the form of humorous flavor text.”
- “And the lore here is absolutely amazing and often very funny; pages and pages of it can be found in the unit descriptions.”
music
28 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
54%
35%
11%
The game's music is widely praised for its fantastic, fitting, and atmospheric soundtrack, often compared to classic fantasy and Celtic themes. While some users find the tracks slightly repetitive and wish for better volume controls, overall the music significantly enhances the game's immersive and memorable experience.
- “It is an endless discovery of a fantasy AD&D style marvel with a perfectly fitting masterpiece soundtrack, art style, and lore.”
- “On the other hand, the atmosphere in the game is amazing (music especially amazing soundtrack), like in the old days of Heroes of Might and Magic 3.”
- “Overall great game and amazing soundtrack, highly recommended!”
- “Edit: There is no option in the menu to turn the music volume down or mute it altogether.”
- “The only solution I found online was to delete the music files in the game folder.”
- “X: High price for lacking quality in areas of sound, music, and a few other less notable aspects of the overall game design.”
grinding
24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding in the game to be tedious and slow, especially in the late game where slow movement, resource scarcity, and micromanagement of territory become frustrating. Repetitive tasks like farming, rerolling maps, and dealing with autonomous enemy units drag down the pacing, making progression feel like a chore rather than engaging. While strategy elements offer depth, the overall experience is often marred by boring, drawn-out gameplay loops.
- “My problem with the game is when you hit endgame and establish your overpowered empire, there is nothing much to do anymore and sometimes it's so tedious to find the last few enemy units and finish the game.”
- “If you make a critical misstep (or even just have bad luck) and lose one of your hard-to-get/slow-to-get units, you might as well just throw in the towel since recovering from a catastrophic setback like that can be pretty tedious and slow depending on who you play as.”
- “I probably missed some stuff but the tedious micromanagement of territory in some cases and bad pacing are two very glaring problems with the game that stand out the most to me.”
atmosphere
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users praise the game's atmosphere for its deep, esoteric, and metaphysical qualities, creating a unique and immersive feeling despite its simpler systems and minimal visual focus. It conveys a subtle, persistent sense of intrigue and depth that sets it apart from typical genre experiences.
- “While the systems are simpler than many other games in the genre, the game oozes atmosphere.”
- “For newcomers: the game is clearly not a visual experience, but it has an amazing depth and an atmosphere I cannot describe.”
- “If you are similar to me, then you will notice it has tool tips and is also atmospherically esoteric (real), metaphorically, and metaphysically at the same time, and there is always a feeling of 'is nothing happening?'”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is highlighted primarily through its soundtrack, which resonates deeply with players. Additionally, the developers' personal and passionate connection to political themes adds a unique, though potentially polarizing, emotional layer to the experience.
character development
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Character development in the game is minimal and slow, with meaningful progress only becoming noticeable after 50-100 turns, and it varies depending on the chosen class.
- “There is some minuscule character development, depending on your class.”
- “In my experience, we're easily talking 50-100 turns until you're able to do any meaningful character development at all.”
stability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users report that the game's stability is impacted by awkward and glitchy sound effects, particularly with life drain and air magic, which feel inconsistent and jarring.
optimization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game offers engaging scenarios that encourage players to continually optimize their strategies with each run, enhancing replayability through thoughtful decision-making.
- “It's the scenarios you run into while playing the game that make you think, 'Alright, one more run.' There's optimization to be done every run.”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The addition of a workshop has streamlined mod advertising, enhancing the monetization process by making it easier for creators to promote their content.

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20h Median play time

162h Average play time

6-500h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 9 analyzed playthroughs

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Frequently Asked Questions

Conquest of Elysium 5 is a turn-based strategy game with fantasy, medieval and historical themes.

Conquest of Elysium 5 is available on PC, Mac OS, Windows and Linux.

On average players spend around 162 hours playing Conquest of Elysium 5.

Conquest of Elysium 5 was released on August 16, 2021.

Conquest of Elysium 5 was developed by Illwinter Game Design.

Conquest of Elysium 5 has received positive reviews from players. Most players liked Conquest of Elysium 5 for its gameplay but disliked it for its grinding.

Conquest of Elysium 5 is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include Conquest of Elysium 4, Dominions 5, Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension, Conquest of Elysium 3, Dominions 6: Rise of the Pantokrator and others.

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