The novel which unfolds around you is set in the fantasy land of Darien, a province ruled by an immortal king who has since done a bunk for reasons I unknown. But before his disappearance, he Balkanised I the land between his four children, telling them to be good, look after their mum and never build a castle on a swamp. Many hundreds of years pass.
The four siblings - yes, they're immortal like their father - have gradually become one with the elements, and have started to squabble. And as you step into the storyline, Aramon and Veruna earth and water have come together to fight the malevolence of Zhon and Taros air and fire.
Your progression through the Kingdoms' book' involves innumerable cut-sequences and interludes that make it feel more like a docudrama than a real-time strategy game. Sure, these sequences appear to be on the crude side, comprised almost entirely of static images and narration, but the effect is spot-on. Fine tapestries, chronicles of the 48 chapters - each one looking like a section from the famous wall-hangings in Bayeux Cathedral - are used to illustrate your passage.
Ancient runes and paintings are shown to further enhance the feeling of authenticity, as if the depicted legends are somehow real, and each scene is accompanied by the sort of matter-of-fact voiceover that you get on National Geographic documentaries.
With each transition, you feel more and more convinced that perhaps it is real. Well, almost. Gameplay in Kingdoms will be familiar to anyone who's ever played real-time strategy, and second nature to every Total Annihilation tan on the planet. In most chapters and in every skirmish game , you take control of a principal character who's able to construct buildings and prepare a raft of armies through the use of spells and incantations. He or she - the Veruna and Zhon are ruled by priestesses is also one of your most powerful units, able to repel enemy attacks, repair structures and heal the wounded with potent magic.
Keeping this character alive is absolutely key to your survival in the game. To create - or, more correctly, summon - a new building, you simply click on the relevant icon now much crisper than before, thanks to the all-singing, all-dancing bit colour interface in the toolbar and drop it on the map. Total Annihilation aficionados will spot straight away that each pending structure is 'ghosted' on the screen, enabling you to see exactly what's on the way. While this may be a slicker, more aesthetically pleasing way of doing things, we must confess a preference for the more precise bounding boxes of TA This is because the game's smaller units such as wall sections and mortars are now rather difficult to place accurately if overshadowed by larger structures.
Generally speaking, the larger and more mighty the structure you envision, the larger and longer the drain on your powers. So before creating a whole new town, look for sacred sites on which to construct your lodestones. These rocks are the glowing crystals that sit on holy areas and unlock the game's single resource, mana, which you need to control in order to replenish your magic and win the game.
Allow the enemy to force you away from these hallowed regions and you'll soon lose power, yield the upper hand and be overrun. You can still make out the basic features of the landscape, such as trees, rocks and the granite monoliths that encircle each holy area, but you can't tell what's hiding near them. You could, for example, spot a strategic place for your watch tower, only to walk over and discover that the place lies behind castle gates and is swarming with enemy troops. Unlike TA the transition between clear and obscured areas of the map is now done with a gently swirling fog that wafts and billows at the limits of your vision.
When enemy units appear, they don't just step forward from nothing, they appear gradually through hazy mists. The only penalty for this is the fact that it demands processor power - even our Pentium II, with a whopping Mb of memory and an AGP Voodoo Banshee, was made to sweat by Kingdoms. One of the few criticisms of TA was that both sides had the same weaponry but different wardrobes. Indeed, the game's widely praised play balance was largely attributable to the fact that everyone was using the same basic units.
Kingdoms is way ahead of that, and comes bundled with a far larger assortment of goodies. We counted somewhere between 20 and 30 unique units per faction, with specialised troops for battles on land, at sea and in the air. The Aramon, with whom the story starts, are principally knights and bowmen, and have the upper hand when on solid earth. Zhon, masters of the air, are better when swooping down to attack from above.
Veruna, at home when organising naughty-bubbles competitions on the bottom of the ocean, have a distinct advantage at sea. And finally Taros, the sinister fire faction, really know their magic.
There are also some welcome 'oddball' units - caged demons and ghost ships to name but two - that stretch both your imagination and the game's variation still further.
What's more, there's the welcome addition of experience. Sure, TA made allowances for veteran soldiers ie those who'd notched up a particular number of kills, supposedly making them more of a challenge in battle , but like line of sight it was one of those 'back of the box' features that didn't actually seem to do anything. Now, all that changes, with skilled units noticeably better and more accurate when fighting alongside novices. Top-scoring troops change their name and even their appearance to reflect higher levels of expertise.
But that doesn't mean you can swamp your enemy under a deluge of all-conquering bastards. Particularly powerful units, such as the gliding, swooping, fire-barking dragons, have restrictions placed upon their numbers. In the case of the Golden Dragon, the Acolyte a more resourceful version of Terry Pratchett's indolent wizard Rincewind is only able to summon one. Rather than being unnecessarily restrictive, this actually lends each game a healthy dose of longevity, discouraging stockpiling and rush victories - the two curses of realtime strategy.
There's also a noticeable slant towards the defensive, meaning there's little to be gained by trekking across the map right at the start for an instant win.
To add style, each unit is now animated like nothing else you've ever seen. Horses gallop, archers reload before firing, and the cannoneer covers his ears each time the gun goes off. Flying creatures and dirigibles paddle the air with wings, banking and diving as they soar over the landscape. Even the immobile Mortar and massive Stronghold a minaret with a medieval howitzer poking out halfway up has two little chaps on the top - one to control gun elevation, the other to work away at levers that rotate the tower.
It's all nicely eccentric. As befits a game with Total Annihilation in its moniker, the interface of Kingdoms is a true work of art. But before we go exploring its many enhancements and yes, Cavedog have managed to find room for improvement , for those of you unfamiliar with the way TA works we'd better explain what all the fuss is about. First off, it's a doddle to do anything in TA Select your leader or any other troop capable of creating new units , click what you want him or her to summon, then place it on the map.
If you want more than one, hold down the shift key; each subsequent click of the mouse adds a new action to the build list.
Creating a long list of instructions has never been easier. It's also intuitive. If one of your builders is building something, you can have others lend a helping hand and get the job done in half the time. You can also issue specific commands, such as patrol an area, guard another unit, repair a damaged structure, and so on. And if you need to break off in the middle of a task to do something else, your helpers finish the job you started before tagging along.
Kingdoms is even better, giving you all the above and more. Getting into a game is now much simpler, requiring less hopping between screens and button pressing. And little trinkets lie in wait after you start playing. For example, you can now insert new orders into the build queue without scrapping all the old ones and starling over. This means you can break off from one task, toddle off to begin another and then, once completed, return to what you were doing.
Not only that, but you can also enjoy 'augmented' line of sight and height advantages. What this means is that you can now climb a bluff or a peak and see the map open up beneath you. And using the same theories of elevation, airborne units can see for miles, which, as you might imagine, has a significant impact on strategy.
Kingdoms comes bundled with full Boneyards capability - ie access to Cavedog's online games server - enabling you to get hooked up quickly and easily with opponents from all over the planet. Copy the DATA directory from either cd to the game directory. EXE file with the one from the archive. Play the Game! File Archive [2 KB]. Play Instructions: Install the game - Full Installation. EXE Patch from the archive to the game directory. EXE Play the Game!
Total Annihilation: Kingdoms v3. Execute the Patch to remove the CD-Protection. Total Annihilation: Kingdoms v1. File Archive [1 MB]. EXE file with the one from the File Archive.
File Archive [3. CD Volume Label. Data track. Audio tracks. SafeDisc - It took 2 hours 30 mins to read the image! Please let me know if you experience or notice any problems with any of the sites. If you own or run a hosted site, please check it over to make sure everything is there and working as it should be.
Note to Firefox users: Upon upgrading to Firefox This will be fixed soon. Update: We are still working through some issues with the new server.
You may notice strange behaviour with the some of the sites until everything is ironed out. News has broken of a possible new expansion to the constellation of releases which take the much-venerated Total Annihilation as their chief inspiration.
These two gentlemen and their team have great credentials, having worked on the Total Annihilation, Dungeon Siege, and Supreme Commander franchises as well as other renowned titles in the gaming community. This prospective new game purports to bring TA-style gameplay to an interstellar level, featuring short, tactical games for the online elite, or massive, cosmos-spanning, strategic slugfests with some of your closest friends.
Of course, creating a new game and hopefully building a franchise in the 21st century is tough, and it may not even be possible without reaching out to the would-be owners of said game.
Which is why the Uber Entertainment team have opened up the doors to the overall process, and are asking for your thoughts - and your pledges - to help get Planetary Annihilation up and running.
Uber Entertainment have in just a handful of days reached half of their fund-pledging goal on Kickstarter, and invite you to view further details on this project at the Planetary Annihilation website, and to provide your thoughts on the Uber Entertainment forums. In addition, there s a very lively discussion going here on our forum as well.
These sturdy Tortoises form a completely new technology line for the battle-hardened Core Army and counters the maneuverable Spiders of the Arm. That s not all. Work on the advanced tech level 2 Tortoises is well under way; give your feedback and suggestions on the Tortoise Pack in this community discussion, and we will incorporate your thoughts in the next step in the evolution of the Tortoises.
That s right, help test the upcoming, comprehensive TA v4. The beta patch is basically feature-complete, but there are a couple of issues that need to be fixed and it needs to be thoroughly tested before a final v4.
But what is the TA v4. It s a comprehensive patch that adds many groundbreaking new features to TA, some which have been dreamed about for over a decade, as well as replaces all existing crucial game updates. The v4. What s included.
You ll have to check out the beta testing thread for the full details, but here s a sampling of some of the features:TA Demo 1. Official Cavedog Updates - includes the v3. Fixed Pathfinding - Perhaps the 1 wish of TA players, the pathfinding is fixed, meaning it no longer degenerates as the in-game unit count increases.
Groups of thousands of units move with ease and complex maps are now playable. New Interface Upgrades - Convenient new features such as double-click selection, unit selection filters, idle factory locator, viewing players actual line of sight while watching a recording or spectating, and much more.
Engine Improvements - Alt TAB crashes are fixed, several cheats are blocked, sound cutoffs are fixed, particle effects are improved, maximum unit size is increased, and much more. Map Features - All known map features are included, allowing you to play on possibly every map ever created.
Unified Experience - The game is standardized for all players and a new framework for conflict-free, properly installed mods is created. Future Updates - After the v4.
TA will now even automatically notify you of patch updates and you can update the game straight from your desktop. All these features are included in the near-complete beta patch, however, remember that the current releases are meant for beta testing and there are a couple of known issues which will be fixed before the final release.
Of course, there might be other issues, so we need everyone to get this patch thoroughly tested and report their results both positive and negative - lack of comments due to everything working as expected doesn t help.
For best results, back up your game folder and install the patch to a clean install meaning TA expansions v3.
Forget everything you know and read the readme carefully. Common files like TADR 0. Mods must be installed after the beta patch to function correctly and must not replace TotalA. Currently, only mods that launch via TotalA. There may be various other issues with old mods as well.
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