Whether they're behind museum glass or on a late-night TV special, from the East or the West or anything in between, let's face it: ancient empires fascinate us. They developed brilliant technologies, fostered rich cultures, and invented things like the concept of zero. The concept of zero, people. I still struggle with the concept of things like donuts. And the wars they waged! Oh, how their troops would blot the skies with clouds of arrows, and roaring fireballs would rain down to punish the unworthy. For all of you who don't remember that chapter of the textbook, the fine folk of Cave of Wonders Studios have decided to educate you with a historical, strategical free-for-all of the ages: Civilizations Wars.
Most levels consist of a rustic landscape, replete with uninhabited pieces of ancient real estate, plus an opposing army who feebly stands in your path to conquest. You're usually given a humble fort or two at the start which will generate reinforcements at a constant rate, indicated by a little number above the structure. Click on whichever outpost you'd like to deploy soldiers from, and then drag the cursor to your target and release. Half of that outpost's forces will be sent out to occupy the object of your ire. If the enemy resides within , the numbers will cancel each other out until either the building is successfully defended or your own subjects set up shop. In other words, the bigger number wins the battle, as long as stats (such as strength, defense, etc.) are equal. Mousing over many of your installments at once will result in coordinated attacks, which are often essential for overpowering a well-defended base.
There's more than just forts on every level, though; clever tacticians will make use of watchtowers to snipe at incoming foes, or crystal formations to increase your production of crystals, the mystical resource that powers spellcasting. Magic covers a wide range of uses, from natural disasters that scour the battlefield to enchantments that can protect property or defect enemies' troops to your side. All of these spells are learned via experience that is accrued at the end of every battle, which can be spent on mightier magic, garden-variety stat upgrades, or nifty passive abilities like faster magic cooldown.
The game's adventure spans many, many skirmishes, plus a few boss encounters with colossal creatures that ought to give your hard-trained military a run for their antique currency of choice. And even when you've felled the grandest of beasts, your campaign stretches on, until you'll find yourself pitted against some civilizations that you definitely don't remember from high school history. I won't give away anything else, but know that surprises are in store for the persistent general. To battle!
Analysis: We may have seen this mechanic implemented before, but Civilizations Wars pulls it off with pizazz to spare, plus some new ideas that help keep things fresh. The sorcery adds another dimension of strategy, and with structures that DON'T keep regenerating soldiers (like towers and crystal shrines), a player has to wonder whether sending more men to protect them is necessary or not. There are also multiple playable races; though their differences are mostly cosmetic (aside from slightly shuffled stats), it's little variations like those that add a unique flavor to the game, distancing it from its predecessors.
The difficulty curve, however, could have done with some tweaking. This reviewer staunchly refused to learn a spell other than the starter fireball for the entire game, and was able to steamroll over the opposition just fine on stat upgrades alone. There's really nothing wrong with that, but one wishes that if magic was going to be one of the defining facets of the game, that it would feel a little more vital to the process. I suppose you could call my approach one style of many, but conjured tornadoes and meteor showers just seemed so frilly when I had an army that could cleanly and efficiently reduce the enemy's army to nothing.
This is also a game with a very forgiving level select, which allows you to replay battles you've already trounced for more experience in case you've come up against an insurmountable foe. At certain experience milestones, new self-handicaps are unlocked (such as no spellcasting or poor visibility), and each one adds a healthy multiplier to your experience points at the end for your trouble. This is another mechanic that throws the difficulty curve; once you've become only decently strong, you can beat the first level with your eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back. You can heap on as many inconveniences as you like, and then reap a gigantic experience bonus at the end. Again, this doesn't affect one's enjoyment of the game, but it doesn't give the player much incentive to replay any level for experience other than the first one with a ton of handicaps.
Still, this is a well-made strategy game with some adorable art and very appropriate, "ancient-y" sounding tunes. There's a cartoony charm in the game's world, which is usually (and understandably) absent from games that deal with historical fare. And even if it's not absolutely essential to the success of a campaign, the arsenal of spells is a ton of fun to monkey around with. So be done with your history textbook, because it's time to re-learn world history with a front-row seat.
Oh -- same people who did GemCraft, yeah? Or a reasonable facsimile? The skills/modes interfaces are a lot like GC 0.
Although HOW I am supposed to increase skills... eludes me.
Oh wait, hurr, found the up button.
I am really Stuck on the second level. Any advice?
Sadly, it seems to take too much of my computer's resources to run past battle 3... 5 is downright impossibly bogged down! (Yes, I've decreased all the "effects, but still too much!) I'm a big fan of Gemcraft, so I like this a lot. Enjoyable up to the point I've achieved. Making it so action runs in multiple directions simulatneously is nice, better than having the action on a single "track", but the click and drag is a little awkward. Have fun, those of you with more powerful computers!
It's such a super game... but I wish it weren't dependent on mouse-dragging. what was so wrong with lighting up cities via radial directions? ow my finger. well, I complain too much -- it's a fun game.
This is a great game, but it could use a high/medium/low quality option. It lags so much on my computer that I can't play past the second level.
Yeah, it just gets bogged down to a crawl by mission 3, which is a waste. I think that's more of a Flash limitation rather than the pc, so hopefully they'll make this a downloadable game.
i have no problem running this game.
I also have a strategy for all levels that has worked for me so far.
First I send my guys from the starting place to one of the larger other buildings. then i send the rest to the small buildings sending the minimum needed. Then i send guys from all of my buildings to try and take over building controlled by my opponent. One important piece is not to go for the crystal mines as they do no make you more people.
Also:
upgrade only offense, defense, speed and agility and XP. I also use no magic at all
The game has great mechanics, is would be a ton of fun to play, but is has such disastrously bad lag that's it completely unplayable. Even on simple levels, the game lags somewhat; on more complicated levels, the game slows to a halt.
Even worse, boss timers run off the system clock instead of the game's frame counter, giving you a fifth as long to defeat the boss as you should have.
In other words: please, please, please, please, _please_ spend some time making the game run better. This would be an incredible game if it actually ran.
Another note: given how poorly flash runs under Linux, you may want to remove the Linux rating from this game. The game would probably run, but the problems with lag would be even worse than they are under Windows.
Every once in a while I had to exit my browser because this game has a problem that causes it massive slowdown after I play a while. It is fixed if I restart my browser.
If you are having trouble:
[spoiler]Replay the first stage to get more exp. Playing the first stage with extra stuff activated is an easy way to get more exp. The first stage can give 10,000 exp. Focus on increasing exp gained first and then speed, attack, defense, and agility. The magic in this game is pretty weak. Bosses die when their main body is defeated but this is hard to do without defeating their extensions first.[/spoiler]
This game is great. I cruised along until the boss at what seems to be the 3rd last level and I can't figure it out. Is there ever a way to hit the boss with troops or is it spells only?
I think the game's got a few bugs:
A) sometimes when a stat is maxed out, I still have an arrow above it, and when I hit the arrow I lose skill points, but don't gain stats.
B) I know for a fact that I have beaten levels with no magic, beaten them with only magic, beaten levels in under 30 seconds, and generated more than 200 guys (you do that practically in the first level), but I don't have these runes.
Generally addictive, but these little things can be annoying. Additionally, it's kind of perturbing that you max out at level 50. This means you can't really "godmode" yourself with max levels in all skills. But that's secondary. The first two, I think, should be fixed.
Some points I have not seen mentioned yet.
Army training. When you send people into a watchtower, they leave as different unit types. It seems they are trained up to be better soldiers, with bigger shields and weapons. So maybe routing your people through an owned tower is a good tactic.
ZOMBIES - There are in screen bonuses that pop up during the zombie battles, which you retrieve by clicking on them. They disappear after a while.
A golden skull turns your cursor into zombie sanitiser, just swipe and they are wiped away.
A fizzing bomb kills all zombies on the screen.
A blob of purple does...? I have no idea. Please someone, tell me!
Also, how do I actually target the ogres. I can fireball them, or tornado them, but how do I direct an army against them? I can only seem to pile more people into the hut being attacked, which seems to win me the battle eventually.
Finally, there's no way to turn the Menu music off? This drives me crazy. Why oh why oh why do game designers not learn that the USER should control the volume of music and effects in ALL games.
Yes. Made it past lv. 2 (lotsa levels actually) and am at the first turtle boss. Any strategy for beating it?
Xtina, I too cannot for the life of me figure out how to cash in all the experience points I've amassed. Ain't no "up" button there. Do you have to use IE something similarly barbaric to get it?
I'd also like to complain about the lag. It's terrible. I've only been playing the first and second level to try and level up a bunch of times, but the amount of lag is so epically terrible, it's not even funny. I have a REALLY NICE AND FAST computer too, (don't mean to brag) and it makes my computer freeze up, even while game settings were as low as I could get them. I would have loved to play longer, but the lag was just making it hard for me to enjoy the game. I'd love to try playing it again if the insane lag can be fixed.
Each level has a walkthrough video. You click on Options during the level, and then hit Walkthrough. Works like a charm, especially on those pesky boss levels.
Beat the game! I ranked 165, and I won in 55 battles. I also never used magic.
CASHING IN YOUR XP
When you're told about a Level UP, you go to a screen of all the options. As you mouse over the icons, it tells you what you get and the cost. To actually cash in, put the mouse above the icon, but inside the icon's frame. An UP chevron appears, click on this to go up a level.
When you have no more XP to spend, only DOWN chevrons will show.
Reminds me of phage wars
Great game! Must play to all. No problems running it, works fine.
I discovered a bug in the game:
on Twilight mode if you are moving forces or whatever if you drag off screen the opposite side of map appears
What exactly does Agility do? Is it reproductive rate?
Does anyone know what you do in Blaster Mode? When you have beaten the game with either civilization, you can re-do levels in "Blaster Mode". The description say "Find the fallen star" but I can't see squat.
"What exactly does Agility do? Is it reproductive rate?"
Yes.
Blaster Mode lets your people have the blasters [guns that shoot blue energy] which you took from the aliens upon completing the game. When you send guys out to attack, they'll shoot the enemy to soften them up as they approach.
Thanks, I had no clue what agility did in this game. The game is fun, but the difficulty spikes mean I'm stuck replaying the early levels over and over again, which is hurting the fun.
Nice game, though not very hard. (No lag on my Q6600.)
There are some annoyances and bugs (some mentioned before), starting with the most annoying (which made me stop playing):
- music, ambience and sfx: these settings should be saved! Though I can live with turning the music off every time I start the game, having to turn off ambience and sfx _every single battle_ is a big pain in the ass.
- restart: this option restarts the battle without any handicaps, no matter what handicap you turned on
- runes: I never got runes for winning without magic, within 30s, etc.
- max level: 50
- maxed out skills have an arrow above them (though they vanish when clicked, and I dont lose skill points)
~ Mummy Survival is a bit boring (and trying to lose as fast as you can isn't as easy as you'd think ;))
Still, very fun game.
There's a small problem with the squid/octopus boss level, if I use magic to take out the tentacles or the main head, it goes to 0 but it's still alive.. It's annoying since it's pretty hard to just kill it with my soldiers.
Duppy
For the any of the bosses you want to load all of the places up with people, then send them into attack one of the appendages
JIGuest, you have to have your peopel deal the final blow, or else the appendage will still work.
Played the game on normal mode and won w/ all three races. Is there a way to play as the "alien" race or is blaster mode the final achievement?
Loved the game, but would like to play Mars Attack!!! as well.
I need some help. I won every single level with the egyptian dudes, but after I beat the giant octopus I can't continue. Do I have to win up to the octopus with every race?
My favorite part is that you can endlessly experiment with abilities and choose your enemy's doom...
Beating the turtle/scorpion/octopus with no magic:
It helps a great deal if your warriors have a lot of speed (improve that in your skills page.) Send everyone you can drag to the turtles upper paw or the scorpions front pincers or the octopus's front tentacles. Most of your soldiers will be killed before they do any damage, but some will get through (as long as they are fast.) Keep on doing that. Once the upper paw or the front pincers or the 3 front tentacles are dead, you can attack the head with little fear.
So I've reached a level where it keeps saying that I've unlocked the other races and I should go to the Main menu and my setting will be saved. But I can't seem to switch to another race without losing all my XP. Is this a bug or am I not doing it right?
I've beaten the whole game and unlocked blaster mode. Now says I need to find the fallen star to get my weapon. Do I have to replay every level to find it or am I missing something simple?
How do you get the "Use Last Level Spell" rune?
Update