ParaWorld (PC)

You have a town centre, except for the Dust Riders as they use the mobile resource collectors as ways to increase their storage and as mobile headquarters. The town centre is used to build workers, your primary staple unit for resource collection and building.

Unless you’re controlling the Dust Riders, their infantry can build as well as fight.

The town centre/HQ is also used for ushering in new Epochs. These are technological advancement stages where you gain new units, new buildings and new upgrades. They cost a set number of resources. The usual resources of food, wood and stone are required for all but the Dust Rider tribe; these warlike nomads also require skulls to enter a new Epoch.

There are 5 Epochs and the most powerful units can be constructed at the higher levels. These levels are also applied to the units you can control, the skulls you gain from battle can be used to promote any unit – of course it is wise to promote your heroes, of which you begin with the 3 main story characters.

Each hero gains special abilities and new unit types as they rise in power, but there is a caveat. Each level only allows a specific amount of slots for units in that bracket, with level 5 having just the one empty slot. You’ll have to choose how you want to play the level up game with your heroes and pick the set of abilities that appeal to you.

Promoting a unit also fully heals it, so it’s wise to promote one of your heroes if they’re in trouble. The normal units gain better combat abilities when promoted but not much else.

So at the core of the gameplay you have a bunch of maps that require various sub-quests and quests to be completed. These can range from finding certain places on the map to clearing out advanced bases/outposts of the various enemies, each will reward you with a number of points that you can use later on in the game to help you enter a new map with better units.

You build up a base, explore and gather resources, enter new Epochs and flip between a mix of offensive and defensive tactics to win. Some of the maps give you just your 3 heroes to control while others are based around armies and conquering settlements.

The 3 factions all have different units and there is a tutorial that teaches you the basics of the game, so in no time at all you’ll be expanding and conquering with the best of them. There are also small artefacts that give bonuses to the army, they have to be carried by a single unit and will be dropped if that unit dies.

There’s a lot of variety in the 3 factions and their units with the Dust Riders being one of the most flexible faction. They take a little bit of getting used to, but once you’ve got the hang of them they’re actually a nifty faction to play. Being able to tear down your base and quickly move to a new place makes them a tricky faction to stop in the hands of an experienced player, or hard AI.

Ordering and selecting units follow the typical RTS conventions, with the addition of a new feature to the GUI.