These killer dragons somehow tie in with a side's deity and the storyline itself.
The Zhon are likely to be a hit with traditional RPG fans who have always wanted a chance to play as the bad guys.Īlthough they're still keeping the details a secret, each side will also have access to a dragon, unique to their won side.
We got a quick look at the Trolls, strong fighters who may (they're still trying to sort this out) have the ability to spawn themselves, Giant Bats, who can attack troops and then fly off before taking too much damage, and the Drake, a small dragon that is a lot tougher than it looks. Last but not least come the Zhon, the army that boasts the most units that resemble the traditional Tolkienesque evil monsters. Although the Taros aren't much for healing units, we've heard that they will be able to reanimate bodies laying around the battlefield as different types of undead warriors who will fight for their cause. Cavedog is keeping most of this side's units close to their chest, but we were able to get a quick peek at the SkyKnight, a lesser dragon with a human rider and the Lich, an undead magician who can strike fear in a radius around him. Most of this side's units are crackling with magical energy, and usually are pretty mean looking as well. This is the side that will be the most interesting to watch as it develops, as no other game has ever managed to produce a compelling water-based army before.Ĭompelling or not, most players are probably going to immediately gravitate to the Taros. We managed to get a quick look at the Fireship, dragon-headed ships that can spout devestating flame from their bows, the Harpoon Ship, which can use its large pikes to tear apart larger monsters, the Kraken, a giant squid that can lay waste to an of you opponent's craft, and the merfolk, a group of watery shock troops. The Veruna have an army very unlike those that you may have seen before as almost all of the units are water-based. We also got a quick look at one of the Aramon water units, the War Galley, a pretty standard war ship. "Gunpowder is really the leveler between magic and technology," Clayton says when describing the Earth oriented group's defenses. The units we managed to get a look at were swordmen, who are basic grunt troops, archers who are weak in hand-to-hand combat, but add a fairly inexpensive distance attack to an attack group, and cannons, more expensive units who carry enough power to blow the bejesus out of an attacking army. Let's take a quick look at a few of the units you can expect to see on each side.Īramon's units are the most basic in the game, and will be very familiar to any ancient history buff. Unlike most other games in the genre though (with the possible exception of Starcraft), each side's units are vastly different, not just the same unit wearing a different image map. Fire is very magic oriented and Air has mythical creatures under its control." While the game will ship with around 160 different units, a substantial amount more than were in Total Annihilation, the fact that these units will be split up between four different sides means that each side will have access to fewer total fighter types. "The two 'good' sides are Earth and Water," said Clayton when asked to describe the difference between the various sides, "they engage in more traditional combat. The types of units and powers each side has stems from these basic elemental relationships. The Veruna are sided with water, the Aramon with Earth, the Taros with fire, and the Zhon with air. Each of these four different people are alighned to one of the four elements, and have a major deity who watches over them.
The new world is split into four different kingdoms, the Veruna, the Aramon, the Taros, and the Zhon who have found themselves at odds with the others. While this may sound a bit premature, we're going to give you a quick look at why we think we're justified in our early praise.įor those of you who haven't been following the hype, TA: Kingdoms is new RTS title that has moved from the hard-edged space combat world we saw in the original Total Annihilation to a medieval fantasy world. After meeting with Clayton Kauzlaric, one of the game's designers and taking a look at the title (which isn't even due until spring of 1999) we're already convinced that this will be one of next year's most compelling releases. There's a lot of buzz going around about Cavedog's next real-time strategy game, Total Annihilation Kingdoms and rightfully so.