Battle for Troy

Additional Screenshots

I must admit, when I first saw this title, I was relieved and excited. For one, it seemed as if the days of WWII RTS games and the like had passed, ushering in a new age filled with ancient tales of events brought to life. Also, for the first time in a while, an epic tale was leading the face of RTS, and it was Greek! However, I think even the pesky old Greeks were easier to command than those in this game…

The Unique Storyline

If you hadn't already guessed, Battle for Troy is the RTS that puts you in command of either Greek or Trojan forces in the epic battle of Helen. A short history lesson may be necessary now; Menelaus was a Spartan King with a wife Helen who was kidnapped by a wild youth Paris, King of Troy. This is a hardly ever touched topic for any RTS, and is pretty unique in using an ancient Greek tale as a storyline.

A New RTS Economy Structure

What else is pretty unique about the game is the income source. Generally, RTS games have laborers who harvest resources to strengthen the economy. However, Troy takes a new twist on the economy aspect of the game. To earn gold to raise an army, it is imperative that you control towns and cities. So rather than having 30 peasants, you can have an army divided amongst a couple of towns to earn gold. After a while, this mode became worth less than all the work required, but it was still fun. My army would constantly have to fight, with many often dying. Then, most of my money would have to be spent to refill the flanks. Refilling wouldn't have been so bad if I had at least been able to have multiple defenses or a mobile army. Instead, the enemy often appeared out of nowhere, laying waste to anything in site. In order to be successful, my forces would have to be huge and spread all over the map. That seems uniform of many games, but Troy made the dependency on the towns and warriors stick out like a sore Greek thumb.

Unit Types and Abilities

Another unique feature that I enjoyed at first was the unit types and some of their abilities. The quantity of units wasn't too immense, and both sides had supernatural units and heroes. There's nothing like having a Cyclops come and save the day, or some heroes totally change the tide of battle. Even the basic units in this game had a new twist to them, even they had experience! So if a spearman survived a battle, he would become stronger and move to the next battle. The conflicting problem was that units weren't generally intended to or did survive. Losses after a battle soared way above 1 or 2, so the problem was first getting a unit to survive. Then, what were you to do in the next battle, let the soldier dangle behind while the others killed? For one, that takes away from your offensive power. It also makes a totally useless body on the battlefield, and takes your attention away from the battle to make sure he doesn't get hurt by a gust of wind. The game is made to have big battles of gore and glory, not saving some random pike man to be a little bit stronger than usual.

Poor AI

The one major problem I encountered with this game was the incredibly poor AI. Honestly, it was the worst I have seen in gosh knows how long. For one, the screen just moves while I'm trying to issue commands. I would highlight a group, and my cursor would take over, dragging me around the map. To add insult to injury, there were no movement controls! Units simply moved from place to place without any coherence. So basically, if there was a Trojan encampment on the mountaintop and I told my battalions to attack it, they would run like chickens without any heads. The first few would get there, and be mowed down by arrows, then the next line and so on and so forth. All in all, it leaves me with the feeling that there is no strategy involved; it's a mass rush to whoever can get the most units first.

Save My Game!

One last problem I would like to point out is the SAVE FUNCTION. When a game has problems with a save function, you know there is something incredibly wrong. I couldn't save during a game, and this got VERY annoying. No way to fix mistakes, or prevent them. It should be a minor problem but it isn't.

Overall

All in all, the Trojan War is a cool idea for a game that shouldn't have fallen into Valusoft's hands.