Godsworn is a Real-Time Strategy game released by Thunderoak Interactive in 2024, set during the Northern Crusades except in a world where pagan gods and heavenly archangels alike exist and lead their followers into battle. Faced by the arrival of a Christian knightly order bearing the standard of Heaven, the gods of the Baltic pagan tribes take up arms against the invaders while trying to maintain their alliance in the face of internal turmoil.
In gameplay terms, Godsworn is essentially Age of Mythology meets Warcraft 3. Like the former, divine powers rock the battlefield and mortal followers generate faith to enact these miracles as well as gathering more mundane resources such as food, wood and wealth. Like the latter, your army is led by a powerful hero who gains strength by battling both the enemy forces and neutral creep camps around the map, levelling up and gaining new abilities. The two factions, the Baltic pagans and the Christian Order, are both strongly defined by your choice of divine hero, with each offering unique units, powers and upgrades to shape their playstyle.
Tropes used include:
- A Commander Is You:
- Saule is a Balanced Brute, with Turtle and Economist to back it up. Her healing powers give her a durable army, with Warriors, Leshys and Solar Stardaughters in the frontline supported by Herbalists, Witches, Rangers and Spiganas grinding the opponent into submission while taking few losses in return. Her Tear of Amber turret gives her the only area of effect base defense in the game to augment her walls and towers, and finally with Serpents of the Hearth she can add an extra worker that doesn't take population space to every single resource building she has for the best economy in the game.
- Meness is a Balanced Guerilla/Ranger who relies heavily on harassment, with cheap fast Werewolves to raid enemy worshippers and his own hero unit able to quickly clear creep camps with his Crescent and disable enemies for a time with Sleep. He has the best mobility in the game bar none with Wane teleporting units home to the Shrine, a dash on his hero unit with Bladedash and a group teleport option with Horned Stride as well. While Saule can turtle and still boast a strong economy, Meness is forced to contest resources on the map and harass the opponent to succeed. Finally, his actual main damage dealers are his ranged hero unit and his caster Witches, Spiganas and Lunar Stardaughters.
- Ausrine is a Spammer Gimmick, focusing heavily on faith as a resource. Ausrine herself has a Charm Person that can convert human units to your side along with a variety of crowd control effects, allowing her to have a heavy influence on battles and quickly build an army off of neutral creep camps. In the late game, her Blue Pastures generate additional faith which can be fed into the Enthralling Hearts Temple to periodically summon otherwise free units, as well as upgrading her already potent crowd control powers to new heights.
- Michael is a Spammer Brute, with aspects of Economist. His powers allow the summoning of weak but hard-hitting Cherubs as well as mighty Avenging Angels to bolster your army, backed up by extremely cheap Militants as a front line. With the Guild, he can safely generate wealth and exchange any non-faith resource for any other, which combined with the Guild's ability to generate wealth when tasked with worshippers and his Farms generating faith as well as food frees his economy to focus on faith for his angel summons and his own abilities. In the late game, Pearlgate of Heaven periodically brings forth a free group of Cherubs and Angels while allowing both to be upgraded.
- All Myths Are True: The Baltic pagan gods exist along with the Archangel Michael, and creatures such as pukis, leshy and cherubs can all join your army in battle.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: There are two: the traditional maximum population limit (default 100, but can be increased or decreased in the settings for custom games) and then a limit on the number of worshippers you can have at any one time which is about a third of the maximum population.
- Blood Knight: As the patron of warriors, Meness naturally hungers for a fight. It doesn't take Ausrine much effort to convince him to assassinate an Order bishop, knowing that doing so will torpedo Saule's attempts to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
- Charm Person: Ausrine's Charm allows her to convert a neutral unit or a stunned enemy human unit to her own side (non-stunned enemies are turned neutral instead, at least until a late game upgrade allows her to directly convert any enemy human).
- Cliffhanger: Mission 5 of the campaign ends with Meness and Ausrine's forces turning on Saule's in the aftermath of their victory, with the two's treachery being revealed to Saule while they gloat.
- Foil: Fittingly, the two different Stardaughters of Saule and Meness. Saule's Solar Stardaughters are powerful melee combatants with a Flash Step and a Spin Attack who thrive in the heart of combat. Meanwhile, Meness' Lunar Stardaughters are ranged casters who summon wolves to attack for them and thrive in the backline away from melee.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Faith is one of the four resources, usually generated by having worshippers pray to your divine at the Shrine. It's spent on mythical units and divine powers, as well as upgrades of divine origin.
- Kill It with Fire: Both Saule and Michael have plenty of ways to smite their enemies with fire, culminating in Saule casting down her gigantic burning blade and Michael summoning a rain of fire and brimstone.
- Our Angels Are Different: In this case, they have eerie alabaster white skin, glowing eyes, and Michael at the least has eyes on his wings.
- Replay Value: Each mission of the campaign has you pick one of two divines to control for that mission, and certain sidequests are only available to one of the two.
- Silver Has Mystic Powers: Units with the silver damage type deal additional damage to mythical creatures.
- Valkyries: The Solar and Lunar Stardaughters are portrayed much like valkyries, particularly the heavily armored Solar Stardaughters. They are noted to carry souls to the underworld, which is represented in game by them generating faith as units die around them.
- You Require More Vespene Gas: There are four resources: food (mainly acquired from berry bushes, hunting wild animals, and farms), wood (acquired from logging forests), wealth (acquired from mining copper, silver and gold) and faith (acquired from worshipping at the Shrine). Each divine has their own bonuses to or alternative ways to acquire these, for instance Saule can create Golden Apple Trees for a faith cost which can be harvested for wealth, or Ausrine can build Blue Pastures to passively generate more faith.
