Epic Units: Part 2
This is the continuation of the epic units topic from previous post. Epic units had finally begun to enter mainstream Real-time Strategy gaming. Now it’s time to see what developers did with this growing concept.
When Electronic Arts defied expectations and made their RTS adaption of the Lord of the Rings film series an epic retelling with massive battles, grand fortresses, and larger than life heroes, it only stood to reason that such a game needed at least one super unit thrown in. The fiery demon of Moria, the Balrog, fulfilled this requirement in every way. The pinnacle of the evil forces’ power tree, the Balrog required a large number of power points to unlock (or successfully progressing through 2/3rds of the evil campaign). It was summoned rather than built, and only remained on the battlefield for a limited amount of time. Yet its raw power and special abilities gave it every advantage against whatever enemies it faced. Unless the great Gandalf was on the field, the Balrog was pretty much guaranteed to take the day.
By this point an epic unit of some kind was practically expected in any true RTS publication that was not a strictly historical/contemporary setting. If the game’s genre was sci-fi or fantasy, an epic unit was almost guaranteed to appear. This became readily apparent when Big Huge Games announced Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, the series’ first foray away from historical settings. The epic units, or Master Units as they were called, were advertised from the beginning and no one was surprised at their inclusion. Indeed, their presence was a source of great excitement and anticipation among the RTS community; and they did not disappoint. Each unit was worth an army by itself, and possessed capabilities beyond what any other single unit-class in the game could deliver.
Now that epic units had become commonplace in RTS titles, it was time to make them a central part of game design. Gas Powered Games’ Supreme Commander was released to great excitement in the RTS community as it was billed as the spiritual successor to the much beloved Total Annihilation. Supreme Commander featured a full tier of epic units, dubbed experimental units (and buildings in the some cases), and a great deal of the game’s overall strategy revolved around acquiring these units quickly, or ensuring that opponents could not acquire them easily.
Some such units were so powerful that they were classified as “game-enders” and could be disabled in online or skirmish matches if the player(s) so choose. Surpreme Commander 2, a sequel released three years later, not only featured even more experimental units, but made them almost ubiquitous by going so far as to sideline conventional combat units to the pure rolls of cannon fodder and swarm tactics.
Even though the Command & Conquer franchise had been one of the first to introduce a super unit worthy of the title, it became rather anomalous by staying in production for over a decade without an epic unit of note. This would change with the release of Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath, which introduced three epic units, one for each game faction. These monstrous war machines physically and statistically dwarfed any other unit, and featured customization slots allowing them to be equipped with a variety of secondary weapons systems. Each epic unit could only be produced from an advanced version of the war factory and cost more credits than any other unit in the game.
Another Command & Conquer title, Red Alert 3, would be released later the same year. It never approached Kane’s Wrath’s level of epic integration, but it included a campaign only epic unit, the Shogun Executioner, that the player was allowed to control on a few occasions. On an interesting note, this would mark one of the rare times in all of RTS history that a campaign only epic unit was given freely to the player. In fairness, the Shogun Executioner was far from invincible, but its destructive capability surpassed even the faction super-weapons.
The epic units of RTS were the arcade bosses of old brought into the RTS genre. They were rarely the centerpiece of the game’s design or story, but each one almost always left a notable impression on the players that encountered them. As the years passed some players used them as a sort of handicap mode to test unique strategies or challenge themselves to defeat otherwise unbeatable opponents. Designers and producers that had grown up experiencing these battlefield giants in action now applied the concept to new genres and mediums; with movies, card games, literature, and video games on other platforms all featuring super units in one variation or another. The RTS genre may have become obscure as the new millennium moved on, but its contribution to the media presence of epic units is undeniable and will continue to be felt by gamers of all genres for generations to come.
Epic Units: Part 1
For a Real-Time Strategy player, there are few things more satisfying than the comprehensive act of causing immense digital destruction in a short amount of time. Traditionally this is accomplished utilizing super weapons like nuclear missiles or orbital bombardment, but starting in the mid-90s game developers provided players with a new way to devastate their opponents on the battlefield. Epic units, as they would come to be called, were powerful creatures or war machines that were incredibly durable, possessed immense destructive power, and were typically the pinnacle of the player’s economic and technological development. Their presentation and themes took different turns over the years, but the trend is unmistakable.
As with Westwood Studio’s iconic Mammoth Tank, the development of epic units had a slow and indeterminate start. In Blizzard’s landmark title Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, each race is able to use its highest tier caster to summon a powerful, temporary unit; the Water Elemental for the humans, and the Daemon for the orcs. While both units were not in the strictest sense epic, they were notable for requiring the highest possible concentration of resources to produce, and possessed combat abilities far beyond anything else the rest of the army rosters could muster. Despite this being something of a hallmark for things to come, Blizzard would never fully pickup on this trend.
That Westwood Studios would be the next developer to produce an example of a proto-epic unit is quite ironic given the rivalry it shared with Blizzard. Red Alert: The Aftermath, the second expansion to the popular Command & Conquer: Red Alert title, featured a single mission with three AI controlled “super tanks”. Although un-buildable and uncontrollable for the player, these tanks had all the features of an epic unit, which the mission proceeded to showcase as the tanks shrugged off tesla coils and nuclear warheads while laying waste to an extensive Soviet Base. Editing the unit files would allow modders to gain access to the super tanks, but as yet a true epic unit would remain out of reach of players for a few more months.
In March of 1998, Cavedog Entertainment would release the first expansion to its seminal product, Total Annihilation. The Core Contingency, as the pack was titled, introduced a host of new units to the base game, including the mighty and powerful Krogoth Experimental K-bot (k-bots being essentially single-purpose mechs). The Krogoth was a surprise for many Total Annihilation players as it had no direct counter or equivalent in the opposing faction. Additionally, its only weakness was its inability to cross water; in all other respects the Krogoth annihilated any form of opposition that could be sent against it aside from massed, accurate, long range firepower. The Commander unit could destroy it easily with its disintegrator, but only a skilled player could micro a Commander close enough without being obliterated in turn. Krogoths required immense time and resources to produce, and typically necessitated an immediate response by the opposition before the battle was swiftly resolved.
Westwood Studios would take a cue from the arcade and console traditions of the previous decade and introduce a “boss battle” in their Firestorm expansion to Tiberian Sun. The Core Defender was an enormous humanoid mech that towered over every unit and structure in the game. It activated after players completed the pen-ultimate objective in the final mission; with no warning or foreshadowing given that the Defender would even appear. Capable of dispatching the strongest units in seconds, the Defender’s only weakness was a lack of air defense, yet its enormous pool of hit points necessitated some very creative tactics that can still be found on various forums and videos today.
As the development era of the 2000s came into full swing, developers knew that super units were a rare but accepted aspect. The only challenge was balancing them, if they were available to the player at all. Ensemble Studio’s Age of Mythology featured several in-game cutscenes were deities and similar beings appeared on the battlefield and wrecked havoc, but it wasn’t until The Titans expansion came out that the enormous Titan units were made available to the player. Titans were far from invincible as they lacked air defense and the ability to traverse water. Yet they had the largest hit point pool of any buildable unit by a vast margin, and their attack could level buildings and finish off most units in a couple of hits. The most impressive feature of the titan was its scale, the enormous model was quite often the largest single object on the map.
After the success of Starcraft, and the publishing of expansions like the Core Contingency or The Titans, two developments became increasingly apparent. Firstly it was possible to safely provide players with epic units, secondly the standard “heavy” or “high tier” units like Terran Battlecruisers had slowly become just expensive cannon fodder in the faster paced meta of modern RTS games. Relic Entertainment’s Warhammer 40k franchise, Dawn of War, took this to heart by providing each playable faction in the base game and its expansions with a top tier unit. Typically these took the form of super heavy armored vehicles or supernatural gods and demons.
Each of them was, by default the last thing unlocked in a battle and required more resources than any other technology or unit. Additionally, players had to control at least one relic resource on the battlefield in order to even build these epic units, and only one such unit could be built at any time. Once constructed, these epic monsters and machines typically required an opposing epic unit to stop them, otherwise the battle was often resolved quickly. Another new development was the uniqueness of each epic unit. Each had its own quirks and mechanics, and they were not balanced around each other, but around their faction as a whole. Some were more effective as support weapons, others as frontline units or building destroyers. For the first time, epic units had transitioned from a class or type to an actual unit tier.
This topic turned out to be a bit longer than expected, so it’s being broken up into two releases. Now that we’ve had a chance to see where RTS epic units got their start, next time we’ll see what they turned into as the concept entered mainstream RTS gaming in force.
XCOM 2 | Game Review
XCOM 2 is the successor to Firaxis Games’ reboot title of the famous XCOM series: XCOM: Enemy Unknown. XCOM 2 was produced by 2K Games and released in February of 2016. An expansion pack, XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, was released in August of 2017. XCOM 2 follows right on the heels of Enemy Unkown’s premise and greatly expands on the story, gameplay, and experience of its predecessors.
XCOM 2 begins its campaign twenty years after Earth’s original attempt to fend off the invading aliens, the XCOM Initiative, suffered total defeat. The aliens now occupy the Earth through their puppet government, the ADVENT administration, and maintain a benevolent facade while developing their secret Avatar Project. XCOM has morphed into a resistance movement led by the Commander, the player’s avatar in the campaign. XCOM’s forces are now based out of the Avenger, a retrofitted alien supply ship that keeps XCOM’s assets on the move and away from ADVENT retaliation.
Galactic Civilizations III
Galactic Civilizations III is the long-awaited sequel to Stardock’s enormously popular Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords and the third title in the Galactic Civilizations series. It was published by Stardock in 2015 and has since then received two expansion packs, Mercenaries, and Crusades, and a third is to be released later in 2018. Similar in nature to the Civilization series of 4x strategy games, Galactic Civilizations holds one of the premier positions among the space 4x titles of the 21st century.
At its core, GalCiv III follows a familiar pattern of 4x gameplay. Individual planets take the place of cities or settlements, with each planet featuring a number of build slots where improvements can be added to increase planetary production of such resources as research, credits, and production. Each planet contributes to a global fund for credits and research but utilizes production individually and production is further diversified into social production, which is used on other improvements, and military or ship production. All planets that sponsor a shipyard can contribute their military production to the construction of space vessels.
Total War: Warhammer II
Total War: Warhammer II, is the sequel to Creative Assembly’s landmark title Total War: Warhammer and is published by Sega. It is the second title in a trilogy of Total War: Warhammer games based off of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle tabletop game. Warhammer II was released in September of 2017 and brings with it an abundance of new features to add to CA’s developing Warhammer series including a new narrative campaign, four new races, and an overhaul to many of the campaign map mechanics.
One of Warhammer II’s primary features is its new single-player campaign called the Vortex Campaign. Unlike previous DLC mini-campaigns in the first Warhammer, the Vortex Campaign covers an entirely new campaign map featuring the fictional New World continents of Lustria and Naggarond as well as the paradise island of Ulthuan and the Old World Southlands. The campaign is also the primary delivery vehicle for Warhammer II’s new mechanics and campaign overhauls such as the introduction of settlement climates and treasure hunting.
Episodic Sequels
Recently I watched a gameplay exposition and review for the upcoming Total War: Warhammer II video game, the highly anticipated sequel to Creative Assembly’s landmark title, Total War: Warhammer, set to release on September 28th. The review itself was straightforward and highly informative and I had no trouble with it. However it brought up an interesting point that relates directly to the nature of episodic titles in video games.
An episodic series of video games is a run of at least two titles with a single, overarching plot that runs through each title, tying the series’ storyline, characters, and even mechanics and themes together across the series. Normally the release dates, intended consoles, and even genre of the titles don’t define if a title is part of the episodic series; content is the only determining factor. Yet perhaps the most important aspect of an episodic series versus a franchise or saga is the proximity of each title’s release to the releases of the other titles in the series. It’s not enough to share the title, setting, and mechanics of prequels and sequels; an episodic title must be an indispensable part of a larger whole.
Endless Space 2 – Prologue
Endless Space 2, developed by Amplitude Studios and published by Sega, is the direct sequel to Amplitude’s previous 4X title Endless Space and the latest release in the Endless series. After a widely publicized and well-received early access period Endless Space 2 was released on May 19th, 2017 for PC and Mac. As yet I have not had the pleasure of experiencing everything the new release has to offer so until there’s some real review material to present I’m going to put up some quick notes about the eager anticipation surrounding Endless Space 2.
Out of the numerous 4X titles released in the last decade few came close to matching the vaunted Civilization series’ quality and appeal as Amplitude’s last title, Endless Legend. Endless Legend combined Civilization’s highly accessible user interface with the Endless series’ science-fantasy mythos and invigorating territorial control mechanics to make a 4X experience that was able to capture and hold a player’s attention across each game’s progression. The enjoyment remained consistent across single player and multiplayer and a new take on 4X diplomacy, while not perfect, kept competitive and cooperative play intriguing.
Total War: Warhammer
In 2015 Creative Assembly celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Total War series of turn-based/tactical strategy games. A few days later it officially announced the upcoming release of its latest Total War title, Total War: Warhammer. For the past few years Creative Assembly and its current publisher Sega had been teasing the development of a Warhammer title in partnership with Games Workshop, the producers of the Warhammer Fantasy tabletop battle game. Finally fans were formally introduced to one of the most ambitious strategy projects of the decade and the first Total War game to not take place in a historical setting.
Total War: Warhammer is rooted in the revised Total War formula that had been fully developed in Total War: Rome II and its Total War: Attila standalone expansion. Regions of the game’s world map are divided into provinces, which are further divided into two to four territories each containing a single settlement with one of these settlements serving as the provincial capital. The settlements generate income, provide build slots for the construction of economic and military buildings, and list provincial statistics for growth and public order. Armies are led by a general unit, termed “Lords” in Warhammer, and each have a distance they can move each turn and various stances they can enter to generate effects on the strategic world map or the tactical battle map.
Other mechanics also remain in their traditional forms, such as the interaction of agents, now called “Heroes”, with armies, provinces, and other agents. Heroes retain the ability to be embedded into an army to provide a passive buff and to gain experience over time. Settlements include a garrison of troops that don’t count towards army upkeep and cannot be ordered away from the settlement’s control zone. Certain terrain types hinder movement or cause attrition damage to armies moving through them.
Beyond these is where Warhammer’s unique nature and radical development noticeably change and improve the established Total War formulas. Warhammer features four playable factions which can be expanded to seven plus six minor factions with free and paid DLC. Each of these factions feature new racial mechanics as well as completely distinct unit and building rosters. The Dwarven faction can only settle in special settlements called “holds” and are notable for having no cavalry units but some of the strongest heavy infantry. Alternatively the Wood Elves can settle in any province on the map, but only construct outpost style settlements with a single build slot; elven units are also light and quick with the Wood Elf faction possessing more archer units than any other faction.
Faction armies also benefit from unique mechanics and traits. The Chaos Warriors, as a horde faction, have no permanent base and must conserve some of their movement each turn in order to encamp and construct horde buildings, but as a result can simply run away to avoid danger to their faction. By contrast the Vampire Counts’ undead armies decay when outside specifically designated undead territory unless the level of vampiric corruption is high enough in the province they are invading, but at the same time areas of high corruption provide increased healing for undead units and cause attrition damage to armies of living units.
How all these unique factions mesh together and balance out is one of the primary design triumphs of Warhammer. Players are no longer promised the balance set of units and counter units from previous Total War titles; now faction compatibility depends on the player’s ability to utilize a faction’s existing units properly. An army designed to deal with monsters and heavy infantry will struggle against opponents fielding artillery and quick ranged units, yet each faction possesses the units and strategies to deal with both.
The units in each army are one of the two primary components of flavor, the other being faction mechanics, that enriches overall gameplay and are also one of the reasons Warhammer has a strong custom battle and multiplayer scene even within the Total War series. In previous titles it was not uncommon for a majority of factions to possess slightly altered unit rosters from a single template. In Warhammer the differences are so distinct that some preferred strategies from previous games aren’t even possible now.
Hero units are also a noticeable change, and improvement, from previous agent systems. When embedded in an army, heroes actually become powerful units with their own special abilities and combat statistics. They still provide passive benefits to the army they are embedded in but their true strength is revealed on the tactical battle map. Embedded heroes take up one of the twenty slots available for army composition, but the loss is rarely felt as only the lord units possesses more raw power and potential in combat.
Heroes, and lords, are also the medium for a completely new mechanic in Total War: magic. Heroes and lords with the spellcaster trait can learn magic spells as they level up. These spells are utilized in tactical combat and use a power reserve system dependent on the Winds of Magic mechanic, a constantly shifting pattern of strong and weak power reserves that covers the strategic map and changes the amount of power reserve available for tactical battles in the different regions. The magic system in Warhammer is another great design triumph as the new mechanic is woven seamlessly into the game. Spells are intuitive, easy to manage, and for the most part powerful enough to warrant their continual use but not so powerful as to break game balance. Each faction also possesses its own variations of spellcaster heroes and lords. The spells available to these units are determined by the magic lore of that unit and not all lores are available to each faction. Except for certain legendary characters, each spellcaster has only one lore.
Legendary lords take the mechanics of lords and heroes even further. These units are similar to generic lords of their respective faction, but feature unique appearances, voice acting, unique unit upgrades, and even unique mounts for tactical battles. Legendary lords can not be permanently killed, if they fall in battle they remain wounded for several turns then become available for recruitment once again. These special lords can be used in custom battles, but it’s in the grand campaign where their power and potential truly shine.
When choosing a faction for the campaign the player also chooses which legendary lord they would like to be the faction leader. Each of these lords brings its own command bonus and set of starting units. The other legendary lords are made available for recruitment when the player completes specific tasks like constructing special buildings or conquering certain cities. Throughout the campaign players are given objectives from a quest chain tied to a unique item for each legendary lord they control. These quests are optional and if completed allow the player to fight a special quest battle against pre-determined enemies using only the relevant legendary lord’s army. If the player is victorious, that lord gets the corresponding unique item permanently.
Many more subtle yet flavorful improvements populate the grand campaign and custom battle experience. The grand campaign itself can occupy many hours of gameplay per faction and with up to seven distinct experiences it makes Warhammer’s replay value one of the highest for Total War games of the decade. Even players dissatisfied with a faction’s campaign style can still enjoy its army roster in custom battles.
Multiplayer continues the Total War conventions of competitive custom battles and a co-operative grand campaign, both of which are stable and viable even on lower internet connections. The unique factions break up the metagame to a greater degree than any previous title. A competitive grand campaign between two players was also introduced, differing from coop in that the players are not linked by an unbreakable military alliance and do not share objectives. The players can still ally over the course of the campaign but need not even encounter each other if their faction objectives don’t call for it. This is a strength in that it gives players a great degree of freedom to interact with the AI and each other, but also a weakness in that the potential lack of interaction takes most of the enjoyment of the multiplayer experience away from overall gameplay.
Total War: Warhammer, is truly the crowning achievement for the Total War franchise and perhaps the greatest title of the series since Rome: Total War. It demands the most stringent graphics requirements of any Total War game, but is perfectly enjoyable on lower graphic settings and playable without error on systems that meet the minimum requirements. The game over-relies on DLC content and Creative Assembly rightly took a lot of heat from the gaming community for its overuse of the sales gimmick, yet with the DLC Warhammer becomes a masterful work of game design that can be enjoyed by gamers of any level including those who have never picked up a Total War title before. The gaming community deserved a cross-title compilation like this for decades and now that its finally here it’s a must for any strategy gamer.
Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
Two hefty expansion packs, numerous DLC, and a vibrant modding community combined to give Civilization V a long full life in the gaming community and formed what will probably be an enduring legacy. When Firaxis announced the development of Sid Meier’s Civilization VI in May of 2016 the fanbase was energized, not so much with dissatisfaction over the current title in the Civilization Series but with gleeful anticipation of the new material Civilization VI would introduce.
Civ VI maintains the core elements of the Civilization series. Players use Settler units to found cities which generate gold, production, food, science, culture, and faith fueling all the options and projects the player must undertake to achieve victory over competing civilizations. Regional terrain types also remain alongside bonus, strategic, and luxury resources. Combat most closely resembles Civ V with single units each occupying a hex; although a new feature allows two or three units of the same type to merge into a corps or army.
City planning is the most noticeable overhaul that the series received in Civ VI. In addition to a roster of buildings and the tile improvements constructed by workers cities can now produce districts in any workable tile. Districts resemble great person tile improvements from Civ V in that they focus on one type of resource. Only one of each type can be built in a single city and the city can produce buildings to improve those districts. Some districts like the encampment and aerodrome focus on unit production while others like the entertainment district and neighborhood improve the city’s happiness and growth.
Districts emphasize the importance of city tile management in Civ VI. Districts must compete with world wonders and worker-built tile improvements for space around the city. Districts also yield more resources if they are adjacent to other districts and some can only be built on certain terrain types. City specializing is heavily encouraged along with the importance of founding cities early in the game. Great people, which are now generated in competition with other civilizations, can only be utilized on a district appropriate to their type (holy sites of great prophets, harbors for great admirals, etc.).
Luxuries and population growth have also received an overhaul. Now luxuries are referred to as amenities and each city has its own count of amenities that affect its populations mood. Luxury resources provide an amenity to every city in a civilization. Entertainment buildings and other factors now only affect the city they are constructed in, however cities no longer suffer penalties due to the number of cities the civilization owns. Also occupied cities do not cause the rest of a civilization to suffer unrest.
Housing is determined by the base capacity of a city and any buildings in that city that increase housing as well as other faction specific research and benefits. When a city exceeds it’s current housing limit population growth slows significantly regardless of the food the city produces. District production is also limited by housing as a city can only produce a certain number of districts for each level of population.
The social policies of Civ V have been heavily redesigned to resemble scientific development. Culture generated by cities contributes to research through a tree of available civic techs. When a civic tech is researched, new civic policies are made available. Civics are divided into military, economic, diplomatic, and great person categories and a civilization is limited to the type and number of each civic based on the government they currently have. Civic techs unlock new governments over the course of play with some governments emphasizing military or economics by by allowing more military or economic civics to be active. Civics can be swapped out anytime, and can be changed without penalty whenever a new civic tech is researched.
Culture and scientific research now benefit from a bonus system. Most civic and scientific techs have an optional bonus objective, like clearing a barbarian encampment or constructing a mine, that will decrease the research cost of the tech by half. These boosts can’t always be easily completed each game but savvy players can use them to jump ahead in certain areas as the game progresses.
Civ VI features the series’ first official religious victory option. Cities follow a religion if a majority of their citizens convert to it. The faith resource can be used to purchase missionaries, apostles, and inquisitors that spread the player’s religion or combat opposing religious pressure in friendly cities. The victory condition is fairly straightforward: simply convert a majority of cities on the map. Certain religious units can even engage in theological combat, which is functionally the same as combat between conventional units, but cannot be healed.
Diplomacy is all about exploiting in Civ VI. AI opponents now have one pre-programmed agenda and one randomly selected hidden agenda that dictates their attitude towards the player. They also receive a randomly generated hidden agenda that is only revealed to players with sufficiently advanced diplomatic relations. The agendas allow the players to engage more tactfully with the AI, however they also have the side-effect of making the AI very one-dimensional. AI civilizations will denounce the player if the player’s actions fail to satisfy their agenda within a few turns. Additionally, even when the AI has moved to this passive aggressive state they still initiate trades with the player giving their convictions a mechanical feel that destroys immersion.
Graphically Civ VI is very beautifully designed. A more cartoonish approach to details was taken but the colors are vivid and the units and buildings are animated and precisely detailed. The game also features optional daytime-nighttime transitions giving the effect of passing days although it does not have an effect on the actual speed of play. Even on lower graphics settings Civ VI is pleasant to look at and meeting the minimum requirements for play is sufficient to enjoy the game completely.
Civilization VI brings no shame to the Civilization series and re-introduces some of the concepts that Firaxis attempted in Civilization: Beyond Earth. Bugs are virtually non-existent and it’s release is overall very polished. Some elements could use refining, like the similarities of several civilization’s unique buildings and bonuses, but a good expansion can fix those easily. One notably pervasive change is the slower environment of play on standard speed. The early and mid-game are very well fleshed out so it doesn’t detract from the game, but players used to the active and hectic end-game of Civ V may be surprised at the crawling science victory requirements or slow build times for modern units.
Any 4x fan will enjoy Civ VI and even at its release price its a valid purchase for any casual strategy gamer. Online performance is very stable and playing with friends is one of the hallmarks of an enjoyable Civilization experience. Not everything veteran Civilization players enjoy may have made it into this latest release but there is still plenty of new and improved elements to warrant numerous playthroughs.
Shattered Union
I unfortunately deprived myself of the opportunity to get into the turn-based tactics genre of strategy games during their heyday in the ’80s and ’90s. Shattered Union, developed by PopTop Software and released by 2K games, was a relatively late arrival to the market upon its release in 2005 but was nevertheless my first foray into a game whose principle mechanics revolved around turn-based tactics.
Shattered Union takes place in a United States that has been divided into several region-based factions after political disunity and domestic terrorism disrupt the national government. Seven playable factions are presented (six U.S. factions plus European Union peacekeepers) and each has its own starting difficulties and opportunities. Players assemble a fighting force on the strategic map and choose territories to attack. Only one territory may be attacked per turn and all units committed to an attack cannot be used again until the following turn so it is generally advisable to keep units back for defense. Income is also received at the beginning of each turn and is based on the value of the territories controlled by the player. Units can be purchased, repaired, and sold any time during the player’s turn on the strategic map.
When a territory is attacked the game enters the turn-based tactical battle phase and this is easily the best and most developed part. Most of the U.S. ground arsenal is represented with the air force making a good showing but not fully filled out, likely due to redundancy issues, and there is no naval combat. Units are divided into categories to help the player easily identify their battlefield purposes; i.e. the player may not know what an LAV or Sheridan tank is for but their assignment into the Scout and Light Armor categories respectively puts their abilities into perspective. Each faction also gets a fictitious unique unit (a heavy armor unit for each faction except the Great Plains Federation which gets an artillery unit) with similar statistics but varying degrees of effectiveness versus specific unit types.
Tactical combat is divided into turns with the attackers always taking the first turn. Deployment zones are chosen at the start of the map with the attacker usually sequestered against one edge while the defender can deploy into the major cities around the map. Once units are deployed the battle begins and fog of war covers the map, even for the defender. Each unit has a specific movement range for negotiating the hex grid map with roads and pathways allowing more movement than forests and hills. Helicopters move and act in the same manner as ground forces but fighters and bombers are stored an in airfield structure and only move when issued a specific order (such as an air patrol or bombing run). Units can move until their movement points are used up but can only attack once per turn.
The story behind Shattered Union’s plot is simple and mostly implemented for continuity. Increased popular dissent across the United States coupled with the elimination of the presidential succession by a terrorist nuclear attack on Washington D.C. prompts the 48 contiguous states to either secede from the Union or simply conglomerate into regional alliances, forming the game’s principle U.S.-based factions. Very little dynamic is added for the E.U. faction and the Europeans are mechanically treated the same for gameplay.
The Political Reputation element adds some personality to faction AIs and player choices. The more landmarks and strategic buildings a faction destroys during a battle the more its reputation slides towards ‘evil’ (the red side of a green to red progress bar that can be viewed on the strategic map). Conversely making attempts to avoid collateral damage and preserve landmarks will slide a faction’s bar towards ‘good’. To facilitate this every unit in the player’s arsenal has a factor for collateral damage allowing the player to determine which units to use in urban combat versus open range combat.
The alignment of a faction’s political reputation affects some of its abilities, most importantly support powers and the number of partisan units that appear in tactical battles. Factions with good reputation will attract partisans in defensive battles and make use of support powers that repair units and buff defense. Evil reputation drives partisans toward a faction’s opponents but unlocks powerful offensive abilities that damage units en mass and lower unit defense. Story-wise, political reputation does not affect the progression of scripted events but does influence the narrative of the player’s ending; different cutscenes are shown at the end of the campaign based on if the player’s faction was primarily good, evil, or neutral.
With little storyline, most of the game’s single-player content revolves around the tactical battles. This element is by far the best developed and most important part of Shattered Union. Players assemble a pool of up to 42 units and deploy any number of them into offensive and defensive battles. Depictions (not to scale) of real landmarks, cities, even interstate highways make the map come alive as the factions battle over familiar locations. Rivers, bridges, and mountains all contribute to make the tactical experience engaging and challenging while bringing the in-game world to life.
Shattered Union’s multiplayer aspect is limited to the tactical battles in the form of a skirmish mode. Players determine beforehand the amount of funds used to purchase armies, then purchase units and engage in a tactical battle across one of the maps used in the Campaign. Power types and levels are chosen through the assignment of a political reputation level for each player during the setup. As turn-based game Shattered Union’s multiplayer quality demand is low and should perform adequately on lower internet speeds.
The game’s limited story, two-faction unit roster, and large but static campaign map can devolve into repeating situations and strategies. Since the bulk of the game’s enjoyable content is found in the tactical battles this is only a partial handicap to long term replay options. However aside from each faction’s unique unit most of the enjoyment comes from a player’s improvisation and willingness to explore new and even potentially handicapped strategies. Certain elements of the campaign, such as how many times a player can be attacked each turn, are constrained by difficulty level. Thus a greater challenge can be acquired by raising the campaign difficulty however the AI’s competency does not improve vs its ‘cheating’ tactics, such as ganging up on the player or knowing where the player’s units are even without scouting. This can lead from entertainment to frustration.
The Skirmish mode offers far more variety for tactical battles. Players can explore different unit combinations, play the Russian faction, and explore the full range of support powers in the good, evil, and neutral levels of political reputation. This is also a much faster and easier method of exploring the factions’ unique units.
Shattered Union is almost on the level of a tactical simulation game; most of its strategic and story elements are background for the tactical battles of the campaign. The campaign itself is enjoyable and worth playing at least once for the excitement of conquering the United States and fighting off the Russian invasion. However this game is appropriately termed a tactical strategy game; only in the tactical battles do the game’s design elements and enjoyment value come into their own. Shattered Union is dated by modern standards and even casual gamers will likely find it to be little more than a distraction good for a dozen or so hours of gameplay. However the game is cheap, easy to learn, and on modern machines has virtually no load time. Its genre is also a fairly rare perspective and focus for PC games and is worth the experience for that element alone.
Note: Shattered Union is available on Steam but has known loading errors for most recent operating systems. The Steam Community has very helpful guides and quick fixes which should allow Shattered Union to operate with little or no difficulty.