Review - Siegecraft Commander

Siegecraft Commander is not just your average RTS game!

For a very long time I have been looking for a new real time strategy game (RTS) that would change up the normal regime of the RTS world. Every so often, one pops it’s head out of the shadows, wiggles its tail end, keeps my attention for a few days and then fizzles away… So when I heard about Siegecraft Commander, I didn’t quite hold it in the regard that I should have done.

As the review tagline states – Siegecraft Commander is not just your average RTS game! It’s a beautifully crafted table top esque / real time strategy meets tower defence game with a fantastic twist. Instead of constructing buildings to spawn and micromanage your minions – you’re managing a plethora of structures that each have their own individual purpose (some of which actually spawn minions, but you’ve got no real control over them). It’s actually one of the game mechanics that really separates it from the hordes of drip-drab RTS games but I’ll go into that a little later.

This refreshing take on the modern day RTS game was developed and published by Blowfish Studios, released January 2017 making this one of nine project (spanning across a multitude of platforms) in their arsenal of games. Siegecraft Commander offers you two separate campaigns enabling the player to join either the greedy treasure hunting Knights of the Freemoi on their quest to establish dominance in an unknown land or the Lizard Men, who’s once know allies have now become less co-operative – For review-sake I chose the Knights. Both stories actually intertwine in ways that you probably won’t expect and that’s all part of this games charm – and don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you!

As I said earlier, you’re basically managing the structures themselves and they are broken down into primary and secondary building options. Your main/starting structure on this fairly vast Tech Tree is of course is the Keep. From within the Keep you can then spawn other buildings like Outposts which are your basic cannon fodder for the opposing team to bash and blast away at. Outposts are also the fastest way to expand your territory and once again from within the Outpost you can spawn the Garrison, the Armoury and the Library… and the spiral continues. There are too many building types to list, but here are just a few and their uses;

Garrisons are you main source of unit-spawn meaning once you’ve tossed down a Barracks (from within the Garrison) you’re well on your way to taking down the enemy however bear in mind that you’ve got no real control over them meaning you’ve gotta’ position the Garrisons/Barracks carefully.

The Armoury allows you to build all the relevant defensive structure that’s you’ll need to ward off the attacks from those pesky Lizard Men. You can place down Mortar to fire short range, Trebuchet to fire long range and craft Airships to fly in one single drag and click direction.

The Library is every mana-user/mage lover’s dream. You’ve now got magical offensive and defensive towers at your disposal. The Tesla tower places down a magical barrier around the tower and everything in its immediate vicinity and the Pyre automatically blast fireballs at anything that enters its range.

Whilst were on the topic of blasting fireballs automatically, it’s probably worth noting that it’s only a select few that fire without your input so you’ve gotta to most of the hard work yourself – it’s excellent but at times frustrating because you can’t be in two places at once.

This however is where Siegecraft Commander’s game-changing mechanic I was talking about comes into play.

When we think of a traditional RTS game, you think – select my building, select a spot and build, dammit build! As the games trailer shows; In Siegecraft Commander this is most defiantly not the case. You select the building that you need and you use the games catapult style controls to fling it into position that you want – too much or too little power and it’ll flop or explode. You use the same mechanic when attacking or defending and can launch explosive barrels at the enemy which really does make for a lot of fun.

Take a look at the trailer and tell me what you think in the comments section below;