TA: Kingdoms: First Thoughts

For those who've been living under a rock for the past few weeks, TA: Kingdoms has officially gone gold and should be on the shelves later this month. That being the case, if you haven't already gone to the PC Gamer site and checked out their extensive preview of the new units and build hierarchies, do so now.

Like everyone else, I've been wondering what the gameplay of Kingdoms will be like ... so I thought I'd take advantage of this chance to share some of my thoughts on the subject. Kingdoms will inevitably be compared to TA, of course, and the comparisons have to start somewhere. This seemed like a great way to begin the speculations, with Cavedog having released just enough information about Kingdoms to spark discussions while the statistics and science of the new game are still unknown.

The keyword in the creation of the Kingdoms unit repertoire was obviously "consolidation." Units with redundant or highly specialized functions -- like TA's Reaper, Shooter, Leveler and the various metal/energy storage facilities -- are conspicuously absent from Kingdoms. While those of us who are intimately familiar with the vital statistics of TA's units could write an entire column comparing Reapers to Goliaths, the subtleties aren't nearly as interesting to the vast gaming public. While many of us have praised the variety of units as one of TA's greatest strengths, the game has taken criticism from some quarters for having an overwhelming number of units. My first-look opinion is that it looks like Cavedog has gone to great lengths to keep the game tactically diverse with far fewer repetitive units per side.

The resource model is the first and most obvious difference between TA and Kingdoms. As most of us know by now, Kingdoms will use a single resource -- mana -- instead of the familiar metal and energy. Although my first instinct was that this might be an over-simplification, on further inspection I'm inclined to agree with this decision. By having one resource, Cavedog has collapsed scads of units (Metal Extractors, Solars, Windmills, Geothermals, Fusions, Metal Makers, and their underwater and Moho counterparts) into two units per side: the Lodestone and Divine Lodestone. If you look closely, you'll notice that Lodestones gather and store mana, eliminating the need for storage units.

Some say that TA actually has four resources ... metal, energy, time and number of units. When you're playing with a unit limit, suddenly your vast solar collector farms become a liability and you start fighting with the "unable to build" messages. You might have to cancel build queues, self-destruct unnecessary units or march an army into battle just to cut down on your unit total. Kingdoms' one-resource model should make it much harder to hit the unit ceiling.

At the same time, having only one way to gather mana means that control of the sacred sites will be even more critical in Kingdoms. In long games of TA, Fusions and Moho Metal Makers power economies by themselves. And although I might argue with Clayton that "resources don't matter after twenty minutes" in TA, it's true that controlling metal deposits loses importance and the game can become a contest of who has the fewest anti-nukes, or the most Hawks ... or a total stalemate.

I have to take a moment to applaud the Kingdoms team for not adopting the "Peon" model or limiting the amount of mana that one sacred site can produce. Although wargaming purists might argue that the "Peon" type of resource-gathering more accurately models the need to guard your supply lines, to me, these units become quickly annoying. It's frustrating to watch your war machine stall because the gatherers haven't reached the All-Important Resource Storage Building. Similarly, if a resource site runs out, there's no more contesting for its value. If an entire map runs out of resources, the game gets dull very quickly.

Although I've been used to the TA resource units for nearly two years now, I believe that Kingdoms' model represents a step forward in keeping resource-gathering critical throughout the game while preventing it from becoming the entire point of the game, or bringing about the nuisance of micromanagement. I expect to catch myself saying "Moho Lodestone" more than once. ;-)

The second thing I noticed, looking through the Kingdoms units, was the vast difference in the number of mobile construction units. Whether they're called Mage Builders, Priests, Tamers or Masons, they'll always be construction units to me. And where TA has Construction KBots, Vehicles, Planes, Hovercraft, Ships, Seaplanes and Subs, Kingdoms offers roughly one construction unit and one advanced construction unit per side.

Is this an improvement? I believe so. It's important to observe that Kingdoms doesn't make nearly so much distinction between types of units -- KBots, Vehicles, Planes and so on. Aramon's Barracks builds the ground-based Archer, the flying Spyhawk and other units. That means that you won't need so many different types of factories to build a varied army. It removes questions like "Vehicles first or KBots first?" It means fewer units taking up precious real estate in your base.

I remember the brief outrage when Cavedog announced that Kingdoms would have far fewer units than TA. It's true -- Kingdoms' unit total doesn't begin to approach TA's vast collection. Has anything been lost, though? Looking closely, you'll see that the consolidation and streamlining has mostly been among resource units, construction units, and factories. Not only that, but Kingdoms' construction units are able to defend themselves if necessary. Every streamlining decision seems to have been made with the best interests of gameplay in mind, which is exactly what I'd hoped for. Fewer production units mean more battle units, after all.

Deities and fortifications will certainly have an impact on Kingdoms gameplay! There's something about the idea that if you're locked in a life-or-death battle, your nation's deity may show up to fight on your side. The element of randomness promises to produce some glorious war stories, as well as encouraging players to move quickly up the technology tree. The early availability of fortifications should make the infamous early-game rush much more difficult. I like the idea -- instead of having to use raid/rush to counter raid/rush, players might have the option to construct a viable early-game defense.

TA's cap on the available number of units certainly wasn't the only thing responsible for the game's success and large-and-loyal fan base. The great visuals, matchless music and intuitive interface were just as important. TA's build queuing and order queuing set standards that many other RTS games have yet to match. Additionally, Cavedog's long-range support of the game has no equal.

Kingdoms has the advantages of building on an established foundation and taking advantage of a wealth of feedback and experience. The last factor -- side distinctiveness -- should be even more impressive than TA's Arm and Core. There are definite and fundamental differences in each of Kingdoms' four sides, which should keep us exploring the depth of tactical diversity in this new game for a long, long time.

-- Brave Sir Robin

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