Ren'Py - Vae Victis - Khan: Conquer, Ravish, Breed [v0.16.2] [Doorknob22]

Great concept and big props to the developer for not shying away from risky content. Unfortunately the execution suffers from too many issues for it to really be enjoyable. I can't list them all so here's the biggest ones:

- The art is already very dated despite development appearing not even half done. A lot of scenes/characters that should interest already don't.

- The overworld gameplay consists largely of spamming next turn and hoping for favorable rng. As tedious as this is, the more significant issue is how lifeless and divorced it feels from the actual VN elements. The fiefdoms don't interact with each other nor can you dynamically interact with fiefdoms beyond initial infiltrations. You mainly only get basic bad rng events (attacks, rumors) in between turns. And in very rare instances, one off visit events.

- The character interactions in the citadel are far too boilerplate and sometimes undermine the life breathed into them through the infiltration scenes. On the same note, characters that are largely absent from infiltrations often come off rather robotic as a result.

That's not to say it's all bad. There are areas where the game excels at.

+ Dialogue writing and world building is excellent when the game enters VN sections. And whereas a few scenes could theoretically be shortened, it never feels like the game is wasting your time with exposition.

+ Infiltration sections while varying in quality are largely very well executed. Marbia in particular felt very dynamic. And rewarding, since you can take some of the characters with you.

[Review for Version 0.9.7]

Overall, quite enjoyable even when in VN mode. By the end of the current content, it's clear that the quality of the game is overall very good with few flaws, though certain events in the early game suffer in terms of polish. The turn-based strategy mechanic is also quite interesting though regrettably I haven't had the opportunity to explore it in full.

One thing I would appreciate, however, is more differentiation between Khan's seduction/palace path dialogues and his dominance/dungeon path dialogues. Other than that, this is a very solid game with few flaws, though some of the character models were off-putting. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Im not gona write an essay although I could.
Just gonna point a few things out..

First of all a rare gem when it comes to NATRUAL BOOBs,
2nd great milf/gilf models.(too bad most gilfs get neglected

Solid story, A khan rising breeding everone he can

Now to the problems.. at a current version 0.9.6 85% of the scenes are NOT animated. and those that are, are mostly very vanilla...
..which would maybe be ok if it was a Dating sim but no.. its a Breeding sim ..

Combt also sux but that could be overlooked..

Considering how many "scenes" are in this game it would probably be a 20-30 gb game to have them all "properly" animated .
Since breeding is a major part of the game, rich and extended creampie animations would fit here better than in almost any other game.

At the current state this game is probably 3.5/5 (considering the crap out there im giving it a 4) but if the dev desides to invest in the animations, that a game like this deservs, this could surely be one of the very top AVN games ever made.

[Version Reviewed: 0.9.6]

What I liked about the game:

+ Story. I loved the idea of playing a conqueror. It fulfills my fantasy desires. The mechanics in the sandbox only adds value to our overall experience. The story of betrayal and revenge would be appealing to many players and the flexibility to allow us to play either as a 'good person' or a 'bad person' was a good choice.

+ Music. The music largely fits the scenario of the game.

+ Re-playability. The ability to choose options that appeal to characters of different morals, you can atleast play the game twice. There is a lot of content to explore in each run too.

+Game Mechanics. I don't think the game's mechanics is as bad as the other reviewers claim it to be. It has improved since I first played the game and it is now a very solid means to immerse oneself in the VN world. It also has a VN mode, so the people who dislike sandbox can always choose that option. (I have never played it in VN mode, so I cannot comment on it's reliability.)

Indifferent:

= Character Development. The LIs in the story have a small amount of character growth when they are removed from their comfort zones. The MC does not change much during the course of our story. The idea to develop more on his relationship with his father in the latest update was a step in the right direction.

= Romance. There is very little romantic development between our MC and any of the LIs. He is mostly out their conquering the lands and the ladies. There's very little subtlety to it. I suppose one would say that it's a power fantasy that suits the domination style, so I don't consider this as a negative.

What could be improved:

- Art. The renders feel outdated. I would say I'm attracted to one or two characters in the story. It's something that the dev should try to improve on in the future.

- Animations. No animations in the early stages of the games. The animations does start somewhere at the middle of the game, but it again feels a little dated when it was introduced. The dev has improved in the latest update in the game on this matter as I felt that the animations were somewhat closer to the standards prevalent in this year.

- Character Interactions. The dialogues between the characters are very inconsistent. Despite playing a nice guy in my playthrough, my MC is happy to be a nasty fucker. I wish the past decisions of the MC helped to shape the character instead of allowing us to make the choice each time.

Overall I feel rating it at 6.5/10 is a fair rating. I think the game is above average, but it is difficult to consider it in the good category.

I do think this game offers a very unique product. There aren't many games out there which has a good 'conqueror in fantasy lands' plotline. I would rate it a star higher if it had better art work.

This game has a lot of potential but has too many problems sadly.

The music is okay and is fiiting.

The sex scenes are mostly awful because they don´t have animations later in the game sex scenes have animation but it is too late the scenes in the begging need animations too I hope they will be reworked in the future. Otherwise they are mostly standard some are with boys and there are a few bestiality moments both are always apreciated.

The character models look very autdated the main character is especially ugly , but atleast there are a lot of different races and species. The personality of the characters is not really good either.

The main story is pretty good I always like the concept of conquering a big land. The stories and quest in each land is often bad or just boring and I hate the quest you have to do there, especially the caves and look for something moment they always take too long.

The interface is just terrible nothing else to say here.

The gameplay is not good either the combat is afwul and the strategy managment is just okay, but the good thing is there are enough ways to skip these if you don´t want do play them.

I would still say it´s worth atleast checking out especially if you like fantasy/mediaval games, and I will definatly come back when the game is finished to see if it improved.

Lovely adaptation of the whole theme - especially the fact that you can go as dark as you can while fitting the narrative and keeping it natural with the flow of the game.

While it may be a little too sandboxy for my taste, it is very easy to get used to and allows for options to skip.

Frankly, anyone who enjoys medieval/fantasy settings and enjoys MCs that can be mean as hell will struggle to find a better game to suit that.

Great job

All in all its not a bad 'game' (lets be honest, it is a VN) but it very quickly becomes repetitive and unnecessarily wordy. While the content is lacking the renders are above average although the models are a bit ridiculous.

Massive replayable value. Great graphics and music. Nice storytelling. Blending in multiple styles of medieval fantasy. Most importantly, you had me at Wonder Woman sir!

My one suggestion is perhaps adapting the combat system for large battle events when you attack a fiefdom.

Awsome game with good characters , mechanics , map and events are all well implemented , battale mechanics are also good specially with the upcoming army battels , good implementaion of the the royal room as per say, and ablity to decide the fate of the queens

v0.8.9
vae victis is basically a visual novel with a very shallow sandbox system. If we hit the number, we can say 15% sandbox 85% visual novel. As we play the game in which the characteristics of the characters are well reflected in the scenario, we feel very well what an asshole our khan candidate is.
But if we talk about mechanics and animations, I can say that it is mediocre. I don't know exactly why but the animations and art just don't hit the spot. And yes, although it cannot be denied that there is a management system and sandbox mechanics, it becomes pointless and simple after you get into it. Maybe it would be a bit more exciting if there were more options in the conquered places. Actually i expected some free roam to find resources, slaves or companions.. Lastly, i belive that some stats for main char and more available actions to do with main army (raids etc..?) could spice the game up..

The story of a prince betrayed by his queen mother, now on a mission to take over the world. I've had a lot of fun playing this game, you come across a ton of girls who can be dominated in all kinds of different ways. Some you can take back to your fortress, unfortunately some are never seen again. But that's life as a conquerer!

One of the best games I found here. Art and storyline is great. It also provides a VN mode so that if you do not want to grind, you can simply turn it off. Also, the quests are captivating. I love the fact that 100% of dominance is avoidable .

Very decent and quality game i would say one of the best.
I've only one complaint.. it's a boring route of dominating scenes. I would like to watch not just one sided painful rape (with same dialogues..) but in the end turn them into lustful sluts who's willingly jumping on dick. Something like corruption or brainwashing.

(v0-8-9)

An overall solid game so far.

It's a story about an heir to the empire being framed for a murder and having to found an army and conquer the lands back one cultural region at a time. Each region has a story segment that allows you to sabotage their current ruler and weaken them for your imminent invasion. These rulers can then be captured and convinced to join you, or kept in the dungeons for fun. Convincing them to join you grants you bonuses, so it's the better choice overall. The other option is more something you do when you've done everything else and just want to see what else could happen.

If you don't like the combat in the story sections, there's an instant win button. Which will likely get used as the game goes on because there is a lot of RNG involved in winning and it gets old quick. The strategy map section of the game isn't very good. It's mostly just waiting around for the gold and troops to pile in, then you recall your troops to go all in on a new expansion battle, then redistribute them to your provinces and wait around some more.

The women can either be seduced or dominated, but the domination stuff occasionally bleeds over onto the seduction routes. The writing for some of the sex scenes is pretty bad at times, but the artwork is quite good. Some of the later scenes are animated, and while not amazing, it is nice to have.

Enjoyed this one a lot.

I'm a big Civ fan so I enjoyed the strategy elements. The girls were pretty diverse and very sexy. I also enjoyed the vast array of side characters.

Would be nice if you could revisit some of your side characters repeatedly, but I guess being able to see some of them in some futher side missions is better than nothing.

Will maybe be cool to be able to visit all your bastards later on in the game.

in any case. very enjoyable for me.

Vae Victis is an alpha-male fantasy VN cosplaying as a management game. While it has some nice features, I feel like it will only really appeal to those who really like it's fetishes, namely rape and male dom.

While Vae Victis really likes to give the impression of a management, kingdom building style game, it has quite possibly the thinnest layer of tactical depth of any sort I've ever seen. I'd honestly have rated the game higher if it had been a VN. You order troops around to maintain order, spend gold to build infrastructure , and then... wait. Wait for troops, wait for gold to do it all over again. There's dicerolling behind the scenes, but very little you can do to influence it without troops or gold which you generate passively. It's brainless, pointless, and tedious. There's no redeeming features to the system.

There's also a combat system, but the less said about it the better. It's rock paper scissors and some of the characters have a pattern. It's an absolute waste of time.

The quests you undertake as the MC in order to undermine the territories are better. The MC generally meets some characters local to the area, does something subversive and generally rude, before absconding back to his kingdom with new allies, new enemies, new resources, or some combination of all of them. The quests are... fine? I wish I could say better things about them, but it's generally just navigating between conversations until things are over. There might be a choice or two, or worse, a fight.

The problem really is that the writing has very little soul to it. The MC is a miscellaneous douchebag chad, the girls have backgrounds but very little personality, and the fantasy kingdom is just there. The only interesting thing is the woman superiority cult which has not-so-sneakily invaded the empire... which leads me to my final point.

You probably won't enjoy this game unless you're into rape and male-dom. If that's your thing, have at it, but the content is very mediocre if you try and play a good guy. The game still treats you like a raging asshole even if you are kind to people, which really feels odd. You still get to fuck most of the girls, you just have to complete their tedious infrastructure quests beforehand. You get a different scene with them where they're suddenly randy for your dick despite your interactions having been pillaging their kingdoms and then talking to them maybe twice. You might even have already raped them once just to show them who's boss. It's absurd in the extreme, and it definitely doesn't help that each of the girls have paper-thin personalities at best, whether you're raping them or paying them.

So overall we have terrible gameplay, a barely tolerable story, and good visuals. Vae Victis is playable if you're into its fetishes, but even then I feel certain you could find offerings with similar fetishes and better gameplay or story. I'd give it a pass unless something in the screenshots really appeals to your inner barbarian khan.

A very good porn game, with a ton of rather varied and quite high quality content. I'm very impatient to see the next updates.

You can actually take decisions which have influence on how the game happens, while at the same time being free to chose what you want without having to bother too much about the metagame consequences, so it's kind of the best of two worlds for me here.

The MC is an unapologetic asshole perfectly willing to kill, rape and whatever to get to his ends, though you have the option to tone down the abuse and aim for seduction instead.
The writing is surprisingly good, with characters having their own persona and the events of the game not breaking the willing suspension of disbelief, which makes the actual adventure interesting in its own right and not just padding between scenes and in fact enhances the scenes by giving them context.

Each region to conquer has its own unique storyline and mechanisms, with bonus sex scenes depending on your choice and its own female ruler to bang at the end. It makes for genuinely interesting stories and allows lots of variety.
Speaking of variety, there is for all tastes. Thin, young, thick, old, consensual or not (though with substantially more on the later) etc. I'm a sucker for restraints so I enjoy much more the scenes with ropes/chains/restricting devices, but I can respect that there is for all tastes. Samely, every scene is unique and it's not just copy-paste.

The game mechanisms (fighting and managing your kingdom) are both minimalist, but for a porn game it's enough to give atmosphere without bogging down in the details. Could definitely use some improvements, but that's not a priority.

All in all, it's a very good game with a solid support from the dev, that manages to put enough quality content both in the porn and the fluff department to be interesting in the two aspects and making each reinforce the other. Can't wait to see it finished.

TLDR:
Not only is this a fantastic game, but it also belongs to a breed that are exceedingly rare. Even if you don't fancy the tags, the execution alone is worth the price of admission.

More context:
As I finished the available content, I came here to read the reviews; especially the negative ones. Because to my mind, this is as good as a game gets. And I have to say, most of the criticisms I found were arguably subjective opinions (which is fine).

I won't do the traditional "pros & cons" as you can find them in other reviews. Instead, I want to point out something whose importance shouldn't be lost to anyone.
You see, we are living in a world were 'creativity' is trapped under the ever-looming shadow of popularity and quick monetary gain. The AAA industry is mostly a lost cause. And many indie devs are following suit, trying to 'make it big' by adhering to the 'lowest common denominator'. And of course, creativity suffers; being 'artful' and 'having a vision' suffers.
So when you find a developer and a game that has a clear creative vision, and despite 'what people may or may not like' is giving their all to realize that vision ... that's quite a rare phenomenon and worthy of the highest praise. This game is a good example of that.

On the game-design side, it has everything also.
It's a story about a smart prince, brought up broken and wronged, who is now vengeful and in pursuit of taking back what's his. Combine that with great visuals and amazing writing and you're in for a great and congruent experience.

I believe the following to be objective. I personally really enjoyed the kingdom management aspect as well.
It's a simple and amusing balancing act. But more importantly, it is completely optional; so is almost any tags that one might not like. They can be turned off or avoided. That means extra work for the dev which he has been considerate enough to put in.
Overall, a very enjoyable and worthwhile experience.

Conclusion:
I highly recommend this game. It is quite unique. This has clearly been a huge undertaking for the dev, and I hope they manage to finish the game.

Vae Victis - Khan: Conquer, Ravish, Breed [v0.7.5] review

Genre:
VN & turn-based kingdom management game harem collector hybrid, with optional side missions often containing sandbox and/or dungeon crawler elements. (Yikes!)

This game started out really strong, but fizzled out completely once I got to the "kingdom management" part of the game. Once I got there I played for maybe two hours more. I invaded two countries, did some infiltration missions, got very bored and was done.

It honestly feels like I'm reviewing two different games. The first part was a nice little RPG action adventure and I really liked it. Then the kingdom management, waifu management and infiltration sections came along and derailed everything.

What I liked about the first part:
+ Excellent MC introduction. He isn't just a cardboard blank. He's got a unique, tenacious personality and there's an appropriate amount of backstory and world building being delivered.
+ A super excellent villain introduction! A murderous mom & incestous undertones. MC promises revenge. Unique and fresh!
+ After some brief chatting things start happening immediately. The pacing here is excellent. There's a daring jailbreak, action sequences and some interesting encounters along the way.
+ Bitches be lying, bitches getting laid. Things getting steamy!
+ There's some nice player options. I get to choose whether I want to act like a noble lord or if I just wanna revenge rape bitches who be tryin to play me for a fool to teach them a valuable life lesson. With some more nuanced options in-between, of course.

Everything up until this point was great, and now suddenly *poof*, all that good shit goes bye-bye, never to be seen again. (Or maybe it returns, what do I know? I didn't finish all the available content.)

From this point the story takes a hard left off a steep cliff and I find myself splitting my time between playing some kind of kingdom administrator and playing as a secret agent infiltrator.

First off, playing Tax Man isn't fun. The "strategy layer" or whatever you wanna call it wasn't fun in the slightest.
Make some numbers increase here, build a building there, try to optimize this and that number. Press next turn and watch some numbers change. Get more money. Squeeze those peasants dry. Attack with your number when it's bigger than the enemy's number. It's just taxes and accounting, man. The universal opposite of fun.

Second:
If you want some covert operations done in enemy territory, and done right, you gotta send in the King!
Seriously what!? This is beyond retarded.
Yes, send the single most important individual in the entire Resistance, alone, to kidnap acolytes and burn a temple, really?
There's nobody in the entire fucking army organization that could have maybe done that instead?
If my guy Khan is this mentally challenged, he's obviously completely unfit to rule. Let's just go with the incest queen instead and just be done with it, it's probably for the better.

Third:
What happened to the queen, anyway? What's she up to?
MC is out there raping ravaging his enemies and conquering their territories (Some of which are the Queen's alies, I would assume?) and what does our Main Villain do? She's got no agents out there looking for MC? No armies of her own to counterattack with? No reinforcements to send her allies? Some assassins maybe?
It's hard to believe that she wouldn't want to try to influence the global situation in some way with plots of her own. I feel this is the main weakness of the "strategy" gameplay: There's no active enemy! Everyone just sits there waiting to get invaded.
It's also a huge waste of a perfectly good villain! Such a great character definitely deserves a lot more screen time! (Again, maybe she shows up later, I wouldn't know.)

Oh man I could go on forever with all the plot holes and stupid mechanics but I'm gonna spare you all. I think I've made my point pretty clearly.
This game is a classic case of trying to do too many things and ending up with a confusing mess filled with plot holes and unnecessary accounting mechanics just dragging everything down, and along the way losing sight of the overarching story and the bigger picture.

This could have been a great RPG action adventure game, as evidenced by the very strong opening. It's such a shame.

Version: 0.7.5

Rating: 7/10

Fun game, fresh mechanics, good woman variety and large player control are some of the best ways to describe the game.
The choices you are given feel nice (always room for more) and with how the world map is set up you can choose which activities to do next with some leeway (similar to Desert Stalker). I like it, It stands out compared to other VN's.

The base here is solid but it has a lot of room for improvement too, which is why my rating is good but not amazing. Towards the later patches of the game, animations are being introduced so hopefully dev will rework the earlier patches to include them too as they were sorely missing. The dialogue does attempt to make up for this though, lots of detail and talk to pad out the renders which is nice but not the same.

The story is good and interesting but I'm not gripped for some reason. I do want it to continue but I'm not invested really. Maybe it's just too early so I've got to give it the benefit of the doubt but I do think there are things that could help. I can't say it's one thing and the things that would invest me in the story might not necessarily be main story related but I think they would help.

To elaborate on my views above: I would maybe add the option of a "main concubine" Unless a wife is coming in the story, and I don't expect great romance here, it would be cool to have your favourite lover who stays in the throne room, you can only have one but get unique scenes?
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I would also add more overworld events happening between "turns" to help grip you to the world and make you feel apart of it. They could be serious/fun (people turning up to your court or plotting against you)
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Maybe optional events that you can start from your throne room and decide based on your chosen route (Help villagers with raiders: Gentleman)/(Visit the brothel as the mighty Khan: Domination) Something to help you interact with your own citizens and stroke your ego
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Simple one would be a lore page with history and updates as you do things, perhaps getting a cool/funny perspective of things from townsfolk in the forms of population updates for e.g: ( Marbia Report 2: "Citizens adapt to your rule well, some are quoted as saying 'blablabla'")

Just some thoughts. Still a fun game and I recommend you to give it a go. Conquer land and women (or men too) as you fight to claim your rightful empire from your tyrant mother.