This is a genre that has been more or less dormant for a long time now, sadly. Even though I was never huge on this genre, there was one game in particular that ticked all the right boxes for me, and it wasn't one of the big titles of the genre's heyday.
I'm referring to Battle Realms, a quirky, unconventional RTS that originally released circa early 2000s and also got an expansion within that time frame. It was created by one of the minds behind Command and Conquer, the game that, arguably, brought the genre to a wider public.
Unlike its gritty spiritual predecessor though, BR had a clear asian influence in its visual language and felt rather different from anything on offer at the time. It wasn't just visuals, though.
BR also ticked to a different beat much its own: the basis of the game was a system called unit alchemy, thereby a unit that was trained in a building could enter another to become a different unit entirely (so in essence training costs and training time was fractional). Also, rather critically, you had to train soldiers out of your lowly peasants, the worker units of the game, so balancing your economy and army was an important aspect.
Also, certain buildings could grant a unit powerful active abilities called battle gear, and again, units had to be trained for this individually, so keeping unit transit and timing in order was crucial (one could, mercifully, set waypoints to form a sort of training chain and facilitate things).
Resource wise there were only two: Rice (food) and water, greatly simplifying getting started economically. A third resource (either Yin or Yang, depending on whether the clan you were using was evil or good, respectively) could be obtained through combat only, and was used to pay for permanent unit upgrades that were global.
This segways nicely into the next interesting point: BR doesn't have conventional turtling or booming strategies prevalent in most RTSes because defensive options are very limited by design; you only have access to watchtowers (that need to be populated with a unit from your army to be any good). Some people might dislike this, but I think it's a breath of fresh air.
There are four clans to choose from: Dragon/Serpent, Lotus and Wolf. These clans differ very radically in playstyle, save for Dragon and Serpent that are really two sides of the same coin, with similar, but still different unit compositions (one good, one evil and the campaign shows as much, allowing to lead either).
Somewhat recently, the game saw a resurgence and is now on Steam under the so called Zen Edition that contains more modern amenities, multiplayer through Steam and bugfixes. My hope is that it eventually gets a sequel, as I'm very fond of this game.
I'm referring to Battle Realms, a quirky, unconventional RTS that originally released circa early 2000s and also got an expansion within that time frame. It was created by one of the minds behind Command and Conquer, the game that, arguably, brought the genre to a wider public.
Unlike its gritty spiritual predecessor though, BR had a clear asian influence in its visual language and felt rather different from anything on offer at the time. It wasn't just visuals, though.
BR also ticked to a different beat much its own: the basis of the game was a system called unit alchemy, thereby a unit that was trained in a building could enter another to become a different unit entirely (so in essence training costs and training time was fractional). Also, rather critically, you had to train soldiers out of your lowly peasants, the worker units of the game, so balancing your economy and army was an important aspect.
Also, certain buildings could grant a unit powerful active abilities called battle gear, and again, units had to be trained for this individually, so keeping unit transit and timing in order was crucial (one could, mercifully, set waypoints to form a sort of training chain and facilitate things).
Resource wise there were only two: Rice (food) and water, greatly simplifying getting started economically. A third resource (either Yin or Yang, depending on whether the clan you were using was evil or good, respectively) could be obtained through combat only, and was used to pay for permanent unit upgrades that were global.
This segways nicely into the next interesting point: BR doesn't have conventional turtling or booming strategies prevalent in most RTSes because defensive options are very limited by design; you only have access to watchtowers (that need to be populated with a unit from your army to be any good). Some people might dislike this, but I think it's a breath of fresh air.
There are four clans to choose from: Dragon/Serpent, Lotus and Wolf. These clans differ very radically in playstyle, save for Dragon and Serpent that are really two sides of the same coin, with similar, but still different unit compositions (one good, one evil and the campaign shows as much, allowing to lead either).
Somewhat recently, the game saw a resurgence and is now on Steam under the so called Zen Edition that contains more modern amenities, multiplayer through Steam and bugfixes. My hope is that it eventually gets a sequel, as I'm very fond of this game.
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