Pertempuran Alam

Genre: RTS

Multiplayer: Internet, local network

Developer: Liquid Entertainment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Publisher in Russia: Russobit-M

Release date: early 2001

Official game website: www.battlerealms.com

Minimum requirements: CPU 350 MHz, 64 Mb, 16 Mb Video

Recommended requirements: CPU 600 MHz, 128 Mb, 32 Mb Video

Ed del Castillo, while working in Westwood's workshops on a future classic, was full of inspiration. The world trembled from Command & Conquer like the Tunguska meteorite — and it was great. But the RTS genre froze since then, a lifeless statue for Westwood designers. A monotonous string of stamped copies emerged from their chisels. The golden calf trampled all the muses, and the beautiful masters of games became professional craftsmen. Ed did not escape the common fate, remaining a producer and co-designer of all descendants of C&C up to the third generation. However, about two years ago, as they say, he cast off the anchor and set out for a free voyage on a submarine called Liquid Entertainment, bringing with him a huge wealth of experience accumulated over years of guardianship of C&C.

With a mind filled with stereotypes, Ed could think of nothing better than to embark on a "return of the RTS genre to its roots." It cannot be said that bringing this idea to life became an unbearable burden for Ed and his team. Fortunately, the roots were always at hand — it was just a matter of directing them in the right direction. Ed, keeping a close eye on the development, resulted in Battle Realms being the most canonical RTS there is — but in the modern sense of the term. That is, the way a real-time strategy should be now.

Battle Realms is nurtured in the fertile soil of medieval Japan. Rice fields, graceful rivers and miniature waterfalls, narrow-eyed peasants in flat straw hats, Buddhist monks, black ninjas, the merciless blade of a katana in the hands of a samurai, and the main character named Kenji — the son of a daimyo. But medieval Japan in its pure, historically accurate form — that's Shogun, at most — Takeda. But here, in Battle Realms, we are told a tale in which the curved blades of the Dragon warriors suddenly burst into flames, samurai become invulnerable to arrows, and the main character wages war against the necromancers of the Lotus clan and easily converses with the Dragon atop a mountain.

It should be noted that the plot constitutes a large and integral part of the game. This is the tale of a little dragon Kenji, who is said to have cold-bloodedly plunged a blade into his father's back and spent seven years in exile, before returning to rule the Snake clan and put an end to the endless conflicts in the land — or perhaps seek revenge on the true murderer. The backstory, which can be easily found on fan sites, stretches for ten pages of fine print. But it is best read not earlier than once you are drawn into the plot — and the plot captivates from the very first scripted video and compels you to complete missions just to see the next one. Even apart from the game, the story of Battle Realms would look pretty good: scorched war-torn lands, a chase for a mysterious artifact, malignant betrayal, a friend crucified on a cross, an executed revenge, and the search for one's "self" in conversation with a red-golden reptile, ancient as the earth itself. Missions are strung on a narrative thread like pearls, and scenes, events, and characters are so masterfully interwoven into the gameplay that you watch each subsequent video holding your breath while carefully reading the dialogues — brief to avoid fatigue, yet still incredibly substantive.

Developers even grant some freedom in gameplay and allow for minor branching of the plot. In the very first mission, you determine which side the main character will align with. The good Kenji (Dragon clan) is wise and generous, while the evil one (Snake clan) is overly self-confident, boastful, and cruel (and his story turns out to be a bit different). However, the differences between Good and Evil here are more ideological. The buildings and units of the Dragon and Snake clans look and are named differently, but, as they say, they are all of one blood. Missions are carried out on the same maps — but the locations of bases and the strategic situation may differ. Additionally, you can achieve final victory by conquering different provinces: almost before each mission, you can choose which way Kenji will go — right, left, or straight (like in Emperor: Battle for Dune). This is enough so that during a repeat playthrough of these 14 or 15 missions you will not feel an annoying déjà vu.

And what should it be?

The theory of gameplay in RTS has not changed since the Paleolithic era.

And Battle Realms, as I have said, is made in strict accordance with the theory. Gather resources. Build a base. Assemble an army. Scout. Attack. Exterminate everyone of a different color. Sweep the map for the "last alien." All strictly, as per Marx and Engels. But these are the canons. From which one can already dance.

When preparing to give the game a modern look, del Castillo first eliminated the manual production of so-called "peasants." In Battle Realms, this is an automatic process. Simply place a Peasant Hut in a clean field, and peasants begin to emerge from it with military regularity. Excellent — the player is freed from the heavy burden of clicking the peasant icon at the producer building every minute.

Following point #1 of the Theory, we send peasants to gather rice crops in fields and fetch water from the nearest river. If there’s no river nearby, any puddle will do. Water never runs out, and new rice grows all the time — especially if you don’t forget about watering. But resource gathering is limited by a cap. Ed del Castillo did not set out to make a player a water-rice magnate. A great move — as you will soon see, half of the game builds on this limitation. The other half is based on another limit — the limit on

peasant production. The more of them there are, the less well the Peasant Hut fulfills its role as an incubator. Villagers materialize at the cottage threshold less and less frequently, and eventually, there comes a time when they stop appearing altogether. And this continues until one of them is killed — then their numbers begin to recover.

How, you may ask, can such a seemingly minor detail support half the game? Simply put. The thing is that a peasant is, metaphorically, the primary state of a unit in Battle Realms. So to speak, its larval stage. A peasant trained in one of the buildings transforms into a warrior — a spearmen or archer, or at most — a geisha (we leave the gender issue to the developers' conscience). Spearmen and archers (unlike geishas) can gain further education and become Dragon Warriors or Kabuki Warriors. Those, in turn, can "grow" into a samurai. If you take another route (i.e., go to different buildings), you can obtain specialists in pyrotechnics — chemist or cannoner.

Thus, the number and growth of the army directly depend on the "birth rate" of peasants. The cap on the overall number of peasants — and therefore units in general — is different in different missions! Thus, while in StarCraft, no one hinders you from spawning armies up to two hundred units — here you must make do with what Ed sent. Typically, players command a squad of 20-30 fighters, and that is quite enough to complete any mission. And not by overwhelming the enemy with numbers, but by carefully considering each move and reloading numerous times, like, for instance, in Myth. Otherwise, it is not possible: if all your warriors are wiped out in an assault on the enemy base — you have to build an army anew. This is easy in the early missions, where you could get by with just archers and spearmen. A samurai from a peasant takes about two minutes. And ten samurai? Twenty? And this is considering that the enemy is also not idle and does not forget to regularly check in on you. Therefore, Battle Realms is much more of a tactical game than C&C, StarCraft, and the like. Thus, playing it is still interesting even now, after countless hordes of RTS clones.

The second prod that Ed uses to spur players on to decisive military actions as soon as possible is represented in the game by the well-known Yin-Yang symbol (see screenshots of the interface panel center). By successfully thrashing the enemy, you gain yin or yang points — depending on which clan you are playing. And these points... serve as payment for all upgrades in the game! Just like that — high morale and no dependence on water-rice machinations. According to the official FAQ, points are awarded not just for killing a certain number of enemy fighters and smashing enemy bases — the reward also depends on how effective your tactics were and how well you minimized losses. Although, perhaps, in practice there is no such dependence — proving its existence (as well as its absence) is almost impossible. But that is not the point. The very principle is incredibly rewarding. Though analogies with character leveling in RPG or tactical games are evident to the naked eye. True, units in Battle Realms do not gain experience and do not become veterans (even though it was promised!). However, this does not spoil the game in the slightest. Honest samurai's.

According to the teachings of "Myth"

Tactics in Battle Realms became a topic of discussion immediately after the game's release. This is good — it means that not everything is limited to mindless rushing. By the way, Ed fought against rushing separately, declaring war on it on all fronts and powerfully kicking the parasite out of the game. Therefore, the same official FAQ can calmly proclaim: in Battle Realms, there is no rushing! And that is pure truth. I checked myself.

Storming the base of a hostile clan with a set of featureless units is futile. At the very least, a combination of archers and spearmen is necessary — otherwise, the offensive will drown in the blood of your fighters. Close-combat units will be taken out by guard towers and wizards/catapulters, and the fearsome bullying will be shredded at a distance by infantry. In short, the squad you intend to use to conquer the map must be at least somewhat balanced. Only then can one speak of some tactics. Without competent tactical maneuvers, you won't see victory like you see your own ears — especially at the highest difficulty level.

The second key to success is the correct positioning of units before battle. It’s damn unfortunate that Ed and Co. were too lazy to implement formations. You have to arrange everyone manually: in front, samurai mixed with Dragon and Kabuki Warriors, in the back, covered by archers. And somewhere close by, there must always be a geisha, playing the role of the field medic. However, with such a setup, battles will still be conducted in the pattern of "wall against wall." You can try to strain a bit and come up with much more subtle and clever moves — they are possible thanks to the special abilities of the units.

After a visit to buildings like the Shrine and Fireworks Factory (of the Dragon clan), warriors acquire new talents depending on their troop type. For example, Dragon Warriors possess an impenetrable energy field, samurai — immunity to distant attacks, and Kabuki Warriors — the ability to "disable" enemy distant attacks. Heroes (Kenji, his friend Otomo, the traitor Shinja, and others) do not require further training — they are endowed with special abilities by nature.

On fan sites, for example, there’s heavy promotion of a technique: to set one Dragon Warrior forward, "turn on" his energy field and from a distance mow down enemies with arrows while they unsuccessfully try to cut the bait into pieces. But using special abilities costs stamina. Once it runs out — the unit loses its talent until it regains strength. Health points for fighters also recover over time — but only very slowly. Therefore, as mentioned, it is essential for all military dramas to include at least one geisha, preferably two or three — just in case.

The thing is, the enemy AI is set against her exceptionally cruelly and first thing it does is send a couple of kamikazes into the center of your troops to kill the geisha. The kamikazes, of course, will perish, but if they fulfill their role, it will be rough for you. By the way, there is also a tactic based on the geisha’s special ability. If you sacrifice (sacrifice) a geisha, it will restore the health of all nearby units to maximum. Thus, by "spending" a couple of geishas, you can take down an enemy that outnumbers you.

As for the AI in general, it doesn’t represent anything outstanding. The enemy executes the simplest maneuvers — for example, it tries to send "couriers" which tease your warriors and lure them into a trap. Friendly AI isn't particularly clever either, and your troops eagerly fall for such bait. You can rein in their unbridled desire for heroism only with commands like Guard or Stop — fortunately, they are executed unquestioningly.

The three-dimensional world of Battle Realms has quite detailed physics. Not as in Black&White, but also not like in most 3D RTS, where all physics usually boils down to units climbing a hill slower than they descend to the foot and shooting further from the top. Here, it is implied. Just like trees (which grow abundantly on almost all maps) obscure the view, and occasionally encountered boulders can be knocked down the mountain and crush careless enemies. Burnt buildings quickly stop burning in the rain — and ripen rice faster in it.

In the meadows, wild horses roam, which can be caught, brought to a pen, and anyone (except the biggest) can ride them. This way, you can form a small cavalry squad that performs daring raids on enemies that have strayed from the herd and work in the rice fields alongside peasants. Mounted fighters can be pulled off their horses, and the enemies can immediately mount the freed saddle! Even a peasant seated on a horse begins to replenish the rice granaries and water reserves faster.

The graphics and animation in Battle Realms are simply remarkable — I have no complaints, and even the impossibility of scaling the image and rotating the camera does not bother me at all. Where else would you see tiny samurai swords stained with blood in battle?! The waters around the wading warriors ripple, the wind rustles the leaves, and flocks of birds fly out from the tree canopies, frightened by your woodland demarche — by the way, the characteristic squawk of the birds can signal the approach of the enemy (!). Tiny rabbits graze in the grass, miniature fish frolic in the river, scorpions crawl across the cracked earth of deserts, and the woods are inhabited by fierce wolves who do not miss a chance to sample Kenji’s clan mates. Decorative little waterfalls set a lyrical mood, and amidst a powerful storm and downpour, a bloody battle looks splendid down the road! It’s just a pity that the warriors do not slip in the mud.

The way of the samurai

Ed and his friends from the GameSpy Arcade server certainly extend a hand of friendship to players wishing to switch from single-player to multiplayer. In multiplayer, by the way, you can play as your longtime enemies from the Lotus and Wolf clans. And they have a different tech tree, different units, different tactics... You will have to learn the art of combat all over again.

The development of Battle Realms — expansions, additional mission packs, continuing the story, a second part, finally — depends entirely on public recognition. Ed said that if there is recognition — everything will be done. And if not — Liquid will have their heads shaved in a monastery somewhere in Tibet and forever plunge into contemplation of the nature of Yin and Yang.

This is a copy-paste of an article from Igromania. The disc happened to come to me by chance, and the game was fated to become my favorite strategy, alongside WFT3 and Rise of Nations. The graphics of the game surpass even those of modern strategies while remaining undemanding on hardware. The balance of power is very well thought out, with 4 races, each with unique abilities. I hope you will enjoy this game, and you will surely come to love it.

Some screenshots: