Total Annihilation Kingdoms

Pros • different types of multiplayer games (essential monarchs or not) • included map and script editor • deus ex machina (the chance of God showing up to save your butt) • easy multiplayer matching • magic and unit experience are cool additions • long and interesting campaign • visually appealing • very slick and effective interface	Cons • the world background feels more like an addendum than an important element • size matters in multiplayer games • same gameplay as every other rts game • same ai problems as every other rts game • 3D acceleration doesn’t help the frame rate • lame sound • little difference between units
Bottom Line A very good RTS game, more suited to newcomers than to veterans looking for something to revive their interest in the genre. Total Annihilation Kingdoms has everything you could ask for in a real time strategy game as we know the genre. The game interface is easy and effective, the world is distinct and the different kingdoms have different strengths and weaknesses. It is easy to find internet opponents and the game ships with a handy map editor. Cavedog is also promising a massive multiplayer campaign entitled the Darien Crusades to add extra interest to online play. The fantasy world is a nice change from the glut of sci-fi RTS games and the single player campaign is run in an interesting and unusual fashion. There is enough originality to the game that RTS fiends will be satisfied and it is an excellent place to start with if you haven’t yet jumped on the RTS bandwagon and want to find out first hand what all the fuss is about. There is not enough originality about TA Kingdoms to recommend it to everyone, and it certainly won’t revive your interest in the genre if you have begun to tire of resource gathering real time strategy.

Resource gathering real time strategy, sigh. My interest in resource gathering RTS waned long ago (in videogame terms). There have been and continue to be so many games of the same caliber and of the same nature of play that it has worn an RTS groove in my hard drive. I never attach that PR speak “highly anticipated” tag to any game of this type. I install them begrudgingly and consider it work to review many of them. TA Kingdoms certainly wasn’t work to review, but it didn’t do anything to revive my waning interest in the genre.

In a pleasant change from the glut of sci-fi RTS games, TA Kingdoms is set in a fantastical world of magic and mayhem. There are four kingdoms in the game, each patterned after one of the elements, earth, air, water and fire. Units include everything from sword and shield infantry to skeletal archers, giants, wisps, demons and mages. Cavedog has created a deep back story that covers the first thirty pages of the manual. Unfortunately, because the universe is original and the written story is abridged and lacks the panache of skilled writing, that back story doesn’t really play into the game. It begins to make more sense over the course of the nearly fifty mission single player campaign, but isn’t compelling enough to feel like anything more than an addendum.

Single Player

The single player campaign is interesting in that it sets the player in the roll of all four kingdoms. The successive missions all push towards a final resolution, but the player is kept in the dark as to what that resolution will be until the very end. Playing all of the kingdoms in the campaign is interesting. After one mission where the player worked hard with one of the kingdoms to establish a beachhead, the next mission may be to play from the perspective of the other kingdom and to destroy that very same beach head. I was disappointed to discover in missions such as these that the unit placements are pre set. After establishing a beachhead and then being charged to destroy it, the beachhead that I destroyed was not the same one that I had created. It was the static one created by Cavedog. Still, this variation in missions makes for a great single player campaign and for a better introduction to all of the units and capabilities of the various factions. The missions also vary in difficulty. Even late in the campaign, some of the missions are fairly easy, while others are much more difficult. The overall difficulty ramp, however is superb and this game would be a great game for RTS neophytes.

RTS veterans may find many of the missions slow and dull. These gamers are probably more interested in multiplayer games anyway. Not all of the missions are interesting. Some, especially the single unit stealth missions, are dull affairs, but with the sheer number of missions, it is hard to demand excellence from every single one.

Bigger is Better

TA Kingdoms is processor intensive and 3D cards only effect the screen resolution and graphical effects. They do not help with the frame rate. The result is that the frame rate really stutters with minimal machines and can make selecting units a real headache. This becomes even more of a concern if you wish to get into networked games. The biggest computer has a serious advantage in multiplayer contests.

Multiplayer

Cavedog’s own game matching service, The Boneyards, serves as a simple way to find online opponents. The Boneyards itself is not very intuitive to navigate but works well enough. Online games play fairly quickly and much differently from the single player campaign or AI skirmish opponents. Playing the campaign and the computer opponent reinforces a defensive, fortification rearing style of play where one trys to optimize the strengths of the side that one is playing i.e. naval or ground units. This is especially true because the defensive fortifications are fairly powerful and resources are endless. Currently, the online tactic that is winning the day is air unit rushes. Newcomers will find themselves swamped and overrun by avian enemies before they know what hit them.

One interesting aspect of the game is that there are different possible multiplayer rules. Each side begins with a monarch. By some rules, losing your monarch eliminates you from the game. This makes for different tactics and shorter games than does playing to the last man.

Same Old Problems

TA Kingdoms is a great RTS game. It has a fantastically smooth and effective interface, with easy to manage build queues and the ability to give standing orders for newly created units. The experience factor, whereby units improve in battle and the extra ability to spend resources on offensive magic spells adds extra interest to the game. The game also features pretty good unit pathfinding (units get to the locations they were ordered to find without too many detours or bouts of standing forlornly behind rocks and trees), but there are still the standard RTS problems.

First, the units differ somewhat, but when you get right down to it, there isn’t much that actually differentiates the units of the various factions. Cavedog plans to continually release new units, which may add some fun, but for now the unit types are very similar: each has a basic infantry unit, each has a dragon type, each has an advanced ranged weapon… they just have semi-different names and graphics. Unit AI is still weak. Units continue to stubbornly walk to their assigned destinations rather than defend themselves from attack. Target acquisition is still a problem. Half of your units in a battle may decide that, since their assigned target has been eliminated, they are finished and can take a coffee break surrounded by the din of battle and dying screams of their comrades. Some games will leave you wandering around the entire map trying to find the one useless building that still remains in the crushed hand of your obliterated enemy. Another irritant is that sight ranges and attack ranges are not the same. You may find your units firing at enemies that you can’t see. Forget the old adage, “you can’t hit what you can’t see,” and make it, “you can’t see what you can hit,” or something like that.

Not Too Shabby

TA Kingdoms is a really good example of real time strategy. Maybe the best, but it didn’t do anything to revive my interest in a tired genre. I would recommend it more to gamers who have yet to play real time strategy games than to RTS fiends looking for the next evolution of the genre.

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