This is a turn-based strategy game. Every planet runs in cycles of a certain number of turns. You set up your army, deploy to a planet, and do whatever you want to do. You can just kill normal enemies, get into pvp battles, get into full on faction wars with various objectives, drop a mining base and defend it, etc.
The game is big on pvp, which makes it a great alliance game, as working together makes you much stronger, and of course, if we want to do faction wars, we need several players.
I used to play this years ago, but the whole game was dominated by 2 factions, due to a lack of planets and a system that made it hard to catch up. It looks like this has been very much fixed.
I think a lot of current CCers will like this because:
-It's web-based.
-The game is built in such a way that it doesn't matter how much time you have to play it. Anything you don't have deployed to a planet can't be attacked, so if you have to step away for a few days, your account will be exactly as you left it.
-Though the game is subscription-based, it also has a market where EVERYTHING can be sold for game currency, including the stuff you buy the subscription with. This means if you don't want to pay, you can simply level units for someone, who will then pay you with the stuff you buy the sub with. Also, the sub is $25 for a YEAR (or $4/month), so it's not exactly pricey.
-Though the planets run in cycles, the overall game world is persistent. This means we can build up over time, and we'll keep everything we earn. It's really a great game to put a team effort into.
-Faction controls allow powers to passed around as needed, so the kind of very loose leadership structure we tend to have works. If the main people leading it aren't around for a while, someone can still drop our faction base.
Tinywarz.com if anyone wants to try it. The game has a bit of a learning curve to it (definitely read the newbie guide), but it's worth it.
