Terra Militaris Review

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Developer Snail Game
Publisher gPotato.eu
Platform PC Browser.
Release Date Out Now @ http://terra-militaris.gpotato.eu

Terra Militaris is a free-to-play RTS from the Irish publishers Gala Networks Europe on the gPotato.eu platform. TerraTM can be played within the browser as long as it supports flash so there is no need to download or install anything large files that also means you can also play it anywhere you can get an internet connection that supports Flash.

MMO’s because of their very nature are quite difficult to review and capture everything in a short article. They give hundreds of hours of entertainment with much more of the game opening up in the latter stages, so with that in mind this review will hopefully give you a taste of what to expect in Terra Militaris.

In the simplest of terms it is an isometric RTS, in which you must balance time, money, resources along with your military might.

You begin by choosing from one of the different civilisations, I went with Roman but this is up to the individual user. Players are then taken through a quick tutorial that explains how to build a structure, how to upgrade those structures and how to research new items. Every task you complete gives you a few new rewards. This initial tutorial all takes place within the city limits, but you can break out of that into the region map or world map giving you much more options. The region maps are where the battles are fought and resources harvested from. By setting up farms, mines and lumber mills in the surrounding area you can ensure a steady supply of the materials you need to keep a city thriving.

The tutorial then takes you through a brief battle (or at this stage of the game it is merely a hunting session), you select your hero and assign him a small army and head off into the surrounding world to hunt some animals to gain experience (XP) and other rewards such as food but mainly this is to level up your hero. The battles have two gameplay options, they can be controlled manually (which brings you to another RTS setting and lets you control individual units and use tactics and special moves within the battles) or if you think the battle can be easily won or want to concentrate on another sector you can automate the process and have the events play out in the back ground. This pretty much ends the tutorial but there is still an awful lot to learn about Terra as you advance through the game.

Heroes : Heroes are for want of a better word your military generals they will lead the troops into battles. They are recruited from the tavern within in your city, the higher the upgrade achieved on the tavern the more recruiting options you have but to start with you can take on three Heroes who start out at level 1. You can then recruit a different variety of lower level soldiers from your barracks (again the upgrade achieve on the barracks influences the type of soldier you can recruit) to bulk up your squads before taking on any further battles. Each time they take part in a successful battle the Heroes “level up”. Reaching level 10 is part of the initial over all task. The more they fight the better and more confident they become and picking easy fights is key as picking the wrong one against an enemy too strong can have a devastating effect and wipe out your army pretty quickly.

Each upgrade or piece of research costs money and resources but it also takes a real amount of time to complete. The lower the level of upgrade the faster it completes, upgrading a simple civilian home to level 2 takes about 20 seconds. You must decide whether to upgrade everything at the same level to maintain a balance or to focus your resources on specific departments to maximise their potential. There are a number of set agenda’s that unlock rewards within the upgrading context as well.

Money and other resources such as wood, steel and stone are required to build your city. These natural resources have to be acquired by building lumber stills and mines to extract the resources; again this is all reflected in a real amount of time. Obviously the higher the upgrade the more they produce.

Initially there is a lot of building, researching and upgrading to get things moving and you are pretty much free to concentrate on this as there is no risk of attack. Just concentrate on building, upgrading and practicing your hunting skills until you reach a level that you can evolve to the next “Era” which takes you to the next stage of the game and unlocks many more buildings, extra upgrades and more soldiers.

You can evolve to the next “Era” after completing the set main tasks such as levelling up a hero to level 10 and gaining fame level of 600. This is done by completing the smaller minor tasks outlined earlier such as fighting/hunting or upgrading your farms and mines etc. Once you evolve you gain access to better buildings, higher upgrade levels and better troops.

This is the essence of the game, obviously there is far more to the game but to cover it all I would be writing forever. The game follows the Free-To-Play model, you just register with gPotato.eu and you can start playing, you never have to pay for anything although you do have the option to buy items with real money (gPotato currency) if you want to. None of the items are necessary but rather they will give you a much needed boost, the main plus with buying items is that it saves time. You can buy instant upgrades, instant research items these are called accelerators and can be bought or won within the game.

Visually the game is nice and simplistic, the animation is quite limited as the majority of the on screen items are stationary buildings. That’s not to say it’s not a pretty game to look at because it is. The structure models and even character models are small but tidy. Turning on the special effects and music adds a lot to the game too and compared to most browser based games it really stand up to the competition.

Beyond your own town in your own game there is a brave new world out there to be explored full of other players you can in-Terra-ct with. A world that allows you to build relationships with other users and form guilds, along with trade or military alliances or to call for help in your moment of need. Failing all the friendly stuff you can just go all out to dominate the world.

Overall : Terra Militaris is a very enjoyable game, it does take a lot of time to start getting anywhere in it but in saying that because its free to play and browser based it can be played pretty much anywhere on any half decent connection with flash support. The perfect game to kill off the lunch hour or play in front of the TV in the evenings, although in my first time playing it, it was running for a good 6 hours as I got hooked on the micro management.

It’s main appeal is that you don’t have to watch it every second I you can often leave in open in your browser while you quickly check your emails as your civilization upgrades to the next level. It can happily run away in the back ground allowing you to pop in and out all day long too.

The Free-To-Play model means there is no risk in giving it a shot. Check it out right now at www.gpotato.eu

Score 7.5/10

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