I thought I would add a quick review. Dragonshard had some potential but like many games, it did not get the additional time or community feedback to raise it up to the level it could have been. 1. The RTS controls are quite bad. A few times there are moments it woks but most of the time you will be yelling at the screen going "Stop attacking and follow orders to fall back... omg you are running back again?!?" 2. There are only TWO campaigns. So no getting to play the Drow : ( The campaigns have their moments but there are no big surprises or plot twists. Additionally both endings go out flat - no punch. 2.5 The Umbragen faction gets all the cool toys and you do not get to use them in the story. A third campaign story would made raised it another star what a bummer. You can still play them in skirmish but considering the story run for the other two factions it feels like the game has a piece missing. 3. The resource model is interesting as people go scrambling when a shard rain happens. That part of the design is pretty neat. Is it worth it, well for the sales going on I picked it up for a low price and bang for the buck it was not bad for 10-15 hour run. In closing it is a real shame, I can see the potential here of what direction it could have gone. There is a world editor there, perhaps if it were as strong as the Warcraft III editor that might have been fan base formed to keep the game going.
If you have played any of the Civilizations series games SID MEIER'S ALPHA CENTAURI (SMAC) will appear very familiar to you. Think of it as Civ with a future/science focus. The summary of this game, in the near future factions will be separated by philosophical ideologies and belief systems for what is the “right direction for humanity to pursue and survive”. It’s unfortunate that the expansion pack is not included as it really fills out the game completely. Good example of this, is you can choose which factions will show up and you get a much greater variety. Still the core game is quite good and offers a ton of replay. Once you pick a faction that interests you or offers the type of game style you want to play, you hit planet fall on a randomized unexplored map and away you go! The planet generator is quite good and it will keep the game fresh each time you play. Technology is the usual prime pursuit as it has cascading improvement effects on your society, economics, military etc. I really love the audio diaries by each faction leader as it represents their thoughts, ideals, and musings as game events move along. The eventual goal/win scenario: military (wipe all opposition out), social (get everyone to agree with you) or scientific (human transcendence). As you play though the game, technology is researched and unlocked. Usually it’s a race of which faction gets their project completed first. Spies can be sent to steal technology, slow it down or even destroy research work. You can also have counter spies by keeping them parked in your cities or even catch enemy spies along the way to a city. You can accelerate research at a cost – the longer the time frame purchased the more expensive it is. This is handy for racing to the dead line when an enemy faction is about to reach the goal before you – handy trick when your faction economics has much deeper pockets and can afford the high costs. Unit design is very modular, you can change its movement type, air, land, or sea. Weapons, defenses, make it specialized or generic. So for example you need inexpensive units that can be built quickly for city defense. Designs are saved as templates so you can modify an existing one or create a new one from scratch. Even better, you can do in the field upgrades so you do not have ancient/out dated units rolling around consuming your resources. Diplomacy is pretty solid though it can be abused by the settler squatter tactic if you open up your boarders to an allied faction. The AI has a nasty habit of parking a city off the outskirts of one of your own and its leaching resources. In an alliance it seems fine at first but later if they suddenly decide to betray you, your enemy is now immediately right within your walls yikes! If you have played the Civilization series then the diplomacy options will appear quite familiar. Military combat is pretty straight forward, the better the attack values vs their defense usually make it pretty clear who the winner will be. No worries about super stacks, each unit takes up its own square. So the combat focus leans pretty strongly towards building more powerful units that can stand well, fend off or assault locations. One unique thing with SMAC is builder units can teraform! Land not fruitful enough? Then modify it! You can set the builders – foarmers as they are called to automatic and they do a pretty good job over all. They do suffer from the spider web road systems in late game but it’s all good as having roads to any where you want to go quickly is handy. Only bad thing is it messes up the landscape and the enemy can use them as well doh! I really hope someday a developer group will make a graphical update to this title. SMAC is a wonderfully crafted title that still shines after all these years. It also has a classic board game feel about it as well. There are a very few mods out there that will improve the faction AI behavior so if you get tired of the opposition making the same mistakes example: (Santiago I am looking at you, picking fights with everyone and breaking the first rule in war – never fighting more than one front where possible). So in summary if you have enjoyed the Civilization series, are looking for a more technology centered strategy game then SID MEIER'S ALPHA CENTAURI is the way to go! I hope that you enjoy it as much as I have! Happy gaming out there!
