My god, this game! The years I spent obsessed with this game! I found Blarg's explanation that TA's lead artist took the helm as project lead on this one insightful and i explains a lot of what I already know. Let me get down to it: I love this game. The story line and art is as compelling as some of the best fantasy books. It's deeply unusual, it takes risks, it has tremendous depth and a fascinating amount of design detail has been embedded in it. The criticism that balance and game mechanics could be better has a point. It's biggest problem was that when it was made there almost wasn't a computer in existence that could run it; clearly a problem no longer! It's still a lot of fun to play though! One of the most interesting mechanics to play with (that I don't see often reported on) is that individual units are able to level up. Your bread and butter units such as swordmen and archers, should they live long enough and get enough kills will gain significant health pool, damage and regen benefits (at least x3 from memory.) At the top of each technology tree is a super expensive dragon unit. These in particular benefit hugely from levelling up. Their initial strength to cost ratio is rather dismal but over time can become rather impressive. Units at max level develop visible gold plating on their skin or armour. Each race has prominent and unique abilities and strengths with very little overlap. This is a very pure game. Almost no concession has been made in design to balance or competition. You get the sense the designer wasn't going for that. I think this was someone's baby. For all the focus on art, mythology and high-minded design and the lack of concession to the realities of interactivity it's an incredibly fun and compelling game to play if you play it the right way. It's not about finding the right counter strat. Almost every fight can be won with a defensive tower creep and aerial scouts. The best way to play it is like a cat playing with a mouse: you know you could win at any moment but it's about testing the flexibility of the system and basking in the sensory overload. I'd particularly recommend this game to any aspiring game artists. It had a huge influence on me.
