Arasmo

Great show : I love these retrospectives ! I can't resist writing about some 1997 strategy games that I enjoyed. Maybe some readers will find a few games that will tickle their fancy. RTS I'm not a big RTS player, so I haven't played most of those that came out that year. Of the ones I tried, my favorite is definitely Seven Kingdoms. Although it looks like a bad Warcraft clone, it’s a pretty original blend of traditional RTS and « empire management » : units can gain experience but also betray you if you aren’t catering to their needs, the economic system is fairly deep and involves trade with other nations… Also, espionage plays a crucial role : your spies can go undercover and rise in rank within another nation, becoming generals or even rulers ! The original game can be bought on gog.com. A legally free version is also available : the source code has been released a while ago as GPL and some very dedicated fans have kept updating the game since, fixing various issues and doing some rebalancing. Netstorm is another excellent but very different kind of RTS : you play as a priest in a floating island and try to capture enemy priests so you can sacrifice them to your gods and gain new powers. But in order to do this, you need to build bridges that connect you to the other islands. And to capture the enemy priests, you need to immobilize him with your offensive units, that you place on the end of a bridge. Once that is done, you can use one of your transport units, the only one that move, to « collect » the priest and bring him to your temple, where you can sacrifice him. Very intense game and a great multi-player experience ! I didn't enjoy Age of Empires or Total Annihilation : they felt like well done but pretty bog standard variations of the Dune 2 formula to me. Someday, I'd like to try Rising Lands : it doesn't seem wildly original, but there seems to be some consequences to your actions during the campaign : for example, if you made peace with a faction during a mission, you'd still be at peace with it the following mission.