Gameplay

RPS

So how does this new-fangled roleplaying strategy work? Well, after each battle, your units and heros will gain levels and abilities along with those levels. Their AI might improve, or they move faster, attack for more damage, etc. All in all, a level 2 group of units should win against against level 1s, while level 14 (the highest in the game) should obliterate that kind of competition. There also seem to be considerably more spellcasting classes in the game than in most Blizzard entries.

Time for a little scouting

The tech tree grows

Speaking of Blizzard entries, Phantagram was obviously inspired by Blizzard and their goal was to make a game that would be like a WarCraft III (before that was even announced.) Thus, it comes as no surprise that Kingdom Under Fire shares a lot of the almost-patented Blizzard "feel" of a RTS. It most closely resembles StarCraft despite the fantasy setting, however. This is likely due to the many gameplay enhancements that SC had over WarCraft II.

Tech Shrubs, Bushes and Trees

Most notable among these similarities is the way that tech trees are implemented. While almost all RTS games are strongly derivative of either C&C or WarCraft, KuF bears the most resemblance to Starcraft of any real-time strategy to date. You start off with your basic units and then you can make buildings that are prerequisites for more buildings and more units. Then you will be able to choose from buying various upgrades (or levels of upgrades) at some of these buildings. As a nod to WarCraft, you can upgrade your home castle through three different stages, each opening up a new branch of the tech tree.

Outnumbered and slain, but the soul still burns!

Hail to the suicide scout

More similarities to WarCraft pop up when we take a look at resources. KuF has brought back the three resource system, with gold, iron and mana. Each of these appears at a "mine" which has to be a certain distance away from your castle. Your workers will gather these resources, which you can then use to buy the previously mentioned upgrades, and units.

ZugZug Want to Bash Hard, Dammit!

Finally, we come to the units themselves. They follow standard RTS guidelines - melee units are powerful up close, annihilating ranged units. The ranged units come in two varieties - light damage but cheap and rapid fire, or the big damage catapult-style weapons. Neither of these will be able to hold up against a melee for long.

The first real battle

SimCity?

Included in the big-hit ranged attackers should be certain casting units which use up nearly all their mana in one, big shot of damage. We've taken the liberty of capturing one of the effects in several screenshots, and believe us, it's as badass as it looks!

Finally, we come to the fliers. These are more SC derived than WarCraft style. They're most similar to the Zerg flier units available in SC. There's a dedicated ground attack flier, a multi-role anti-air unit and a transport.