Sorcerer King is a new kind of 4X from Stardock, an independent studio with over 20 years of experience making strategy games.

Unique, asymmetrical design creates a new kind of 4X gameplay based around surviving the Sorcerer King’s relentless, unscripted assaults.
Sophisticated "Game Master" AI ensures each game is a new, challenging experience.
Win the allegiances of independent minor factions before they abandon any hope of defying the Sorcerer King’s dark reign.
Play one of six different sovereigns, each with their own unique skill tree, spellbooks and units.
Extensive crafting system allows players to customize their units and seek out ever more powerful recipes to even the odds.
Hundreds of quests deliver unique items, units, resources and unexpected narrative twists.
Earn the loyalty of powerful champions and develop them into juggernauts capable of standing up to the Sorcerer King’s most powerful minions.
Found new cities and build them up to gain access to new units, abilities, crafting recipes and more.
A New Kind of 4X
Sorcerer King is a new direction for 4X game design, pitting the player against a single overwhelmingly powerful enemy instead of a set of evenly matched factions racing for abstract victory conditions.

Think of the Sorcerer King as the evil mage who won the last traditional 4X game. He has already conquered the world. His enemies (including you) are scattered, their armies broken and cities torn down. His dark minions have free reign to terrorize the survivors everywhere except a few tiny outposts of civilization (like the one you start in) too insignificant to crush.
Asymmetrical Gameplay
Sorcerer King is built around the concept of asymmetry. Your goals (kill the Sorcerer King) are wholly different than the Sorcerer King’s goals (destroy the shards and therefore the world). The rest of the game revolves around this central concept.

The Sorcerer King doesn’t play by the same rules – he operates on a completely different level than your scarce resources allow you to. A sophisticated “Game Master” AI controls his forces and other events in the world, managing pacing and generating threats to ensure an engaging game from start to finish.
What’s In, What’s Coming
Sorcerer King is in Early Access. That means it’s functional but incomplete as we march toward its early 2015 release date. The main things you’ll see improve during Early Access are polish, balance, and content.

As of Beta 3, all the major gameplay features are implemented – but we’re still busy adding content to them. For example, all the minor factions have an allegiance quest you must complete to get them on your side, but they’ll have several that the game randomly (or not-so-randomly) chooses from so that each playthrough is unique.

Crafting will also level up in the next beta, allowing players to customize your crafted equipment based on your sovereign’s skills, what rare components you’ve found, and how much mana you want to dump into the creation process.

MINIMUM:
OS: Windows 8.1 / 8 / 7 SP1 / Vista SP2
Processor: 2.2 GHz Dual Core Processor
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: 512 MB DirectX 9.0c Compliant Video Card
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Hard Drive: 5 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Card