Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion

If it's not on sale for $10 or less I really wouldn't recommend this game. Grand strategy and simplistic combat are not a great mix and that has never been more apparent than in Ravenmark. The game's greatest failure is its lack of ability to provide you information and logistics. You can win the day in a tough battle and the game wont tell you how many waves of enemy forces there are or what directions they're going to come from, allowing them to surprise your general with a random spawn of fast archers that move first and just execute him after he's become exhausted from beating back the last two waves. Your heroes are critical, if they die you lose the battle and start over. You get bogged down with these heroes, suddenly forcing you to baby sit half your army and work hard to keep them out of harms way because they're really not much stronger than standard troops. So now you have too many troops you can't afford to lose, and sometimes war is just about choosing which troops to sacrifice to win the battle. Here you don't have room for choice. Perhaps the biggest downfall of the game is the ass backwards attempt at formation fighting. At first it seemed like it would be an awesome concept, as similar units can be combined into larger formations. The problem is the formations are awful. Their ability to move, even around your own defensive obstacles, is non-existent. What's worse is that a formation just makes you massively susceptible to flanking, even by small half dead individual units. It doesn't matter if there are no enemies in front, back, or the other side, one tiny unit on your left or right automatically receives a flank bonus. As a formation, you are too bulky to likewise maneuver, and in every mission you're outnumbered by opposing hordes so even if you broke up your formation to use the same method, you don't have as many expendable infantry as the enemy. Perhaps the most infuriating thing about the game is that it lies to you. From the very tutorial you are told that all orders are given at the same time without knowledge of what your opponent is planning and then executed by individual unit initiative. So if you order two units to attack the same target, and the unit that goes first destroys it, your second unit cancels their order and stands their ground. This is important because you have a limited number of commands you can issue each turn. The computer ignores this rule. It can issue any number of commands, and they NEVER cancel orders. The computer always seems to give orders knowing what yours are going to be. You could move your cavalry into the most far reach and wildly unexpected order to trample enemy archers behind their own lines, and then suddenly all the infantry will about face as if they knew what you were planning. This coupled with an awful repetitive trumpeting soundtrack, and constantly questionable spawn points for your units, just makes the experience more work than fun. It feels like you are being punished for the game's inability to prepare you for what you can't see or for the fact that game's rules only apply to you and your units. There is no sense of progress. Surviving units don't seem to improve or gain any veterancy, there are no resources, no gold, no inventory, and no matter how many battles you win or heroes you have with you, the enemy armies of vermin and autistic speech impaired barbarians will always be able to issue more orders than you. Your only real reward for victory is continuing through a needlessly verbose and ham-fisted story.