Kohan no barbarian
TimeGate Studios talk about putting the strategy back into RTS
Although they are called real time strategy games, all too often combat in these games devolves into "tank rushes", with both players hurling huge numbers of cheap units at the enemy until they keel over and die. TimeGate Studios are hoping to avoid this pitfall with their new fantasy strategy game "Kohan : Immortal Sovereigns", which will feature a "more complex" combat system than most other games in the genre, with units organised into companies for battle.
"The front line units [of a company] will rush to the attack, while the support units will usually hang back and cast spells, fire arrows, or summon more attackers. Archers will fire arrows until they are attacked hand to hand, then they will switch to melee weapon for close combat", according to designer Steve Hemmesch. "The outcome of this fight will depend on a slew of different things. The terrain each company stands on may modify defense values. The unit combination of one company may simply be superior to the other. The formation each company was in when conflict started will alter how effective each company is. Whether or not a hero leads one of the companies may change the course of the combat. And there are more factors for players to discover."
Hopefully we should know soon whether or not TimeGate have succeeded, as the game has "been in a closed beta now for four months", and the company is now "mainly fixing the last of the bugs and addressing a few small balance issues". With any luck the game should be on shelves, in the USA at least, some time in mid-March.