Real-time strategy (RTS) games usually let players exclusively recruit and command units to either gather resources to create more of them or engage the enemy team. Games like the Starcraft series, the Age of Empires series, and the Command and Conquer series are a few of the most well-known RTS games in the gaming industry.
These games don't allow the players to intervene in unit engagements to influence the tide of war aside from directly commanding individual units or a unit group to do something else. However, there are a few games that allow players to do just that.
One of those games is Divinity: Dragon Commander.
Divinity: Dragon Commander Plot
Divinity: Dragon Commander was developed and published by Larian Studios for the PC in August 2013, per the game's Steam store page. It allows you, the player, to turn into a dragon in-game and turn the tide of war in your and your units' favor.
There's not much of a plot in the game. Players take the role of a bastard prince of an emperor killed by their trueborn children, who then ripped their father's empire apart in a three-way bout to decide who will fill the imperial throne.
This bastard prince isn't just an ordinary human, however. His mother was a dragon who could shapeshift into a woman of immense beauty that charmed anyone who saw her, which explains the prince's ability to turn into a dragon.
As such, players will need all the help they can get to eventually conquer all of their father's lands and reunite the realm in peace.
Gameplay
Much like the Total War games, players take turns in moving their units around the map and improving their domain through building establishments that could either recruit more units and mercenaries or increase the amount of gold and research points they get on their turn.
Gold is required to recruit units and construct establishments, while research points unlock more powerful units and their abilities and enhancements. Players can also use research points to unlock more abilities while in the field as a dragon.
Some buildings give cards that players can use during their campaign to build establishments, improve their units or hinder their opponents', bolster units' numbers with mercenaries, and even improve or hinder entire regions.
Units present on the map must be moved to capture a region, regardless of whether there are enemy units present in it. Should there be none, it will fall to the player with no consequences. If enemies are present, a battle will commence during the game's battle phase.
Real-Time Strategy
When a battle is imminent, players can use these cards and choose whether to fight the battle themselves or let their generals handle it, auto-resolving the battle. The game displays how likely players can win regardless of whether they fight it themselves or not. Auto-resolving battles don't always guarantee that players will win due to other factors, such as luck.
Fighting a battle yourself requires you to create and command individual units while also figuring out the perfect time to intervene. Players are required to build unit-creating buildings first to get more units. However, to create and build more, players need a sufficient amount of recruits to do so.
Recruits are the main and only RTS resource in the game and are dependent on the population of the region the battle takes place. Players can get more recruits by building additional recruitment centers on plots dedicated to hosting them scattered across the map.
But the number of recruitment centers doesn't always mean victory is at hand. It also comes down to the quality and quantity of units present on the field. The game follows a rock-paper-scissors format that can help players figure out their army's composition.
Since the region's population determines how many recruits are available for the battle, using the available recruits wisely is an important step in winning it. Some of these units have abilities that either buff friendly units or debuff the enemy's, which could turn the tide of war. Some of these abilities are passive, meaning players don't need to activate them to work.
Players' dragons are the most powerful unit in the game, but they can be defeated by anti-air units and other dragons. It takes 20 recruits to make them available, but spawning them gives players more abilities to help their units and their allies and debuff and destroy enemy units.
Running An Empire & Relationships
As players progress, the burden of running an empire will eventually catch up to them, resulting in a dilemma that they have to solve themselves. Once a council made up of the races present in the empire is established, players will need to decide how they will run their empire.
Many of these dilemmas consist of various ethical, religious, and moral issues present in the world today, such as euthanasia, the legalization of the Divinity series' version of THC, arranged marriages, and the desecration of cemeteries for the advancement of science and technology.
Players' generals will also ask about similar dilemmas, such as equal pay for women in the empire, gay rights (including marriage), and the execution of justice in minor issues such as disputes between the races.
Players will also get to marry only one of the princesses among the empire's races. After choosing one, the princess will present more moral and ethical dilemmas that could change how they look at the world, though many of the decisions players would make will have political ramifications for the race to which they belong.
Multiplayer
Divinity: Dragon Commander has a multiplayer mode that lets players either help or go against each other in the game's campaign or on a skirmish map. When playing the campaign in this mode, players can fight or help each other by using their own cards, units, and dragon to help or go against the enemy team. Meanwhile, skirmishes consist of pure RTS that directly puts players in the heat of battle and skip the maneuvering on the world map.
Verdict
Divinity: Dragon Commander has a fairly difficult learning curve that players must go through to enjoy the game. They must figure out which unit beats which to make auto-resolving battles easier and juggle creating and commanding units while in dragon form.
Once players get through the curve, the game is easy to win in less than 24 hours on normal difficulty.
As such, while the game puts an interesting spin on real-time strategy and is worth playing overall to see how you would run a kingdom, it's best bought when it's on sale.
