RTS

Review – Stormrise

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Imagine you are fighting in a war. You are within a small group of soldiers but you control all of the soldiers on the battlefield. It is time to issue commands.

“Corporal Dunnan, do you see the soldiers over there?” you ask.

“The Infiltrators, behind the-” Dunnan starts.

“No, no, no. Not those infiltrators, the ones over there,” you point. Pointing is actually the only way you can issue commands, because your army is not very sophisticated, which is surprising since you are operating within a fancy mechanical robot body-thing.

“Oh,” Dunnan says, “the ones by the refinery.”

“Not in front of the refinery-”

“Oh kinda to the side of it,” he says.

“Yes, yes,” you reply, “Tell them to go over there,” you say, pointing.

“Okay,” Dunnan starts, “Unit 392, proceed to the balcony of the second floor-”

“No, no, no!” You say, pointing vigorously, “over there! Over there!”

I know from experience that this is an inefficient way to run an army. →  Rayman Reading Rabbids

Review – Seven Kingdoms: Conquest

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Imagine throwing the major pre-gunpowder empires in history into a grand free-for-all. The Japanese would have samurai and ninja, Vikings would have axethrowers and berserkers, Normans would have crossbowmen and knights, and so on. Now imagine adding in random demon lairs that attack human settlements. This is the setting of Seven Kingdoms, an RTS with several fairly deep mechanics, including unit loyalty, economy balancing, and a great espionage system. Its sequel would go on to refine each of these, adding more civilizations and the ability to play as the demonic races of the Fryhtans. Both have a deep complexity that keeps me playing when other RTS games start to feel too shallow.

Unfortunately, I am reviewing neither of these games here.

Seven Kingdoms: Conquest appears, at first glance, to be a continuation of the first two games. It adds a storyline in its campaign, which adds realism to the world so that instead of being thrown all together, the races are divided into epochs (i.e. →  Show me the reading!

Review – Knights & Merchants

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Knights & Merchants is a sim’s sim. In fact, it’s a sim’s sim’s sim. They don’t come much simmier than this.

It’s not a new game, but it’s hardly well-known. The game is said to be quite popular in its homeland of Germany, but knowing no German nor Germans, I cannot say for sure. I came across it many years ago, and after actually doing research for an article, found that it is nearly 10 years old. An expansion, The Peasants’ Rebellion, came out in English more recently, although non-German resources on it are hard to find. For its age, Knights & Merchants does its job quite well. Depending on who you ask, that job could be creating a living and breathing city, sucking your time away like a sponge, or boring you completely out of your mind.

Knights & Merchants is primarily a resource-based city sim. You build roads and buildings, and each building produces or processes something. For example, a forester’s hut produces tree trunks by chopping down trees (via its mindless slave, the forester). →  Double your reading, double your fun.