In recent years, the achievements of strategic mobile games such as Tuotu and Three Wars in the industry have allowed more manufacturers to see the huge potential of SLG, a relatively niche category. After all, the integration of social, strategy, leisure, war, cultivation and other elements and gameplay, whether it is like war, strategy or leisure, farming, social players, can find their own fun in the game. However, SLG mobile games are usually known for their slow pace, long life cycle, heavy liver krypton, on the one hand, the first few SLG mobile games have entered a stable period, they are more conservative and cautious in the update of gameplay; on the other hand, even if there is a newly launched SLG mobile game, it still continues to use the homogeneous gameplay and content of "walking the grid, the background of the Three Kingdoms", and lacks new breakthroughs. As a veteran strategy gamer, I also began to have some aesthetic fatigue, looking forward to some new strategy games that can break the tradition and give a different and innovative experience.
So, when I saw the strategy mobile game "Return to Empire", which focuses on "making strategy come alive", I naturally became interested. The game is set in a multi-civilization genre, and there is a hint of difference in the current world's cookie-cutter Three Kingdoms background SLG. I also joined the game's test during the Return to Empire Spring Test, so today I'll talk to you about my review experience with the game.
First, the battlefield is alive
Thanks to the strong blessing of the technical team, the first reaction of "Return to the Empire" to me is a strong sense of reality, such as the mountains and rivers, trees and grasses in the game, which better simulate the terrain and environment of the real world, and the battlefield world has a rare sense of freshness of SLG, and the quality performance is stronger than other SLGs. Key terrains such as passes and crossings are not just barriers, but have stronger strategic combat significance, and some have even become places where soldiers must fight.
For example, the jungle, which is often used as a decoration in other SLG products, was given a key strategic resource in Return to the Empire. In this test, the squat system was launched - when any troop passes through the jungle on the map, it will hide its tracks and make it invisible to the enemy, which makes the already changeable battlefield more playable and also allows the terrain strategy of returning to the empire to be used more flexibly.
Woods and grass ambushes, in fact, we often hear about the real battlefield, and we often see similar squatting grass settings in MOBA games. Hidden woods waiting for opportunities to sneak attacks, often have a fatal effect, cut off grain roads, ambush soldiers and other bridge sections that we often see, usually the ambush party uses the jungle as a cover to launch a sneak attack. In this game, many players also use this strategy to launch sneak attacks on the enemy's temporary camps, so that the enemy cannot move the camp, or ambush in the jungle and raid and intercept passing troops. Of course, not only can the bushes be used for ambushes, but also the bushes can be used to arrange counter-encirclement, use small units to attract ambush troops, and then let the big troops kill out, so as to achieve the effect of total annihilation of ambush troops.
It can be said that returning to the Empire uses this jungle terrain as a decoration in other similar products, so that players on the battlefield have a more flexible strategy choice space.
As the climax of the SLG game, siege warfare, "Return to the Empire" is presented to the player in a more vivid and realistic way. The first is a more three-dimensional and realistic city that is different from other SLG games, and the high-level city has four offensive and defensible gates in the east, west, south and north, each of which has a different terrain, making each siege battle have a different experience. The city defense functional buildings designed according to the scale of different cities make the siege no longer just monotonously surround a square and bombard.
Facing a real city, Return to Empire has a completely higher degree of siege strategy freedom than similar products. For example, before the city gate is broken, the siege party can operate a catapult to remotely attack and demolish small buildings in the city to improve the efficiency of the formal siege attack on the city center; for example, the terrain of each city gate is different, and the selection and distribution of troops and troops is a test of siege command; for example, during the siege, due to the different types of troops stationed in each city building, it is necessary to reasonably allocate their own organizational members to targeted attacks in order to reduce the battle losses and maximize the siege gains. After the besieging side gathered fire to break through the city gate, it had to engage the defenders inside the city, destroy the buildings in the city, and finally tear down the core buildings in the city to achieve occupation.
These designs make The Siege of Return to Empire different from other SLG games on the market today, more in line with the real logic, and the development team has the intention to build a real battlefield for players.
Second, flexible strategies
In addition to the more vivid battlefield, compared to other SLG products, the return to the Empire in terms of strategic freedom and flexibility also allowed me to see some surprises that competitors did not have.
In recent years, SLG products have been in the free real-time strategic direction of the force, but the march operation seems to have been forgotten by them, often as long as a starting point, and then a point to the end of the line to go to the line, and the return to the Empire players in the manipulation of the troop march can have more riot operations, can pull the troops to move or even pull in the opposite direction, not only visually make people feel that they are really commanding the march, but also can have a real impact in the actual battle situation.
And this kind of instant micro-exercise is not only reflected in the march, in the battlefield you can also according to the battlefield changes, at any time to operate the team to the enemy's small amount of health or restrained troops to give priority to the attack, quickly eliminate the enemy's weak links to gain an advantage, while operating their own master will release skills at key moments to achieve a final effect. The official also strengthened the grand battlefield atmosphere, so that hundreds of people fought smoothly on the same screen, so that every player can experience the game and pleasure of SLG real-time warfare that has never been seen before.
Therefore, players can flexibly use their strategies on such a battlefield sandbox composed of diverse settings such as "free marching", "terrain strategy", "crouching grass ambush", "climate factors", "hero skills" and so on, and I believe that each player has made up a series of exquisite tactical applications. For example, on the battlefield, our main force ambushed in the woods, controlled a weak unit to pretend to launch an attack, attracted the main force of the other side to come, our side through free marching, flexible position to pull the enemy troops, using the surrounding mountain terrain and rain and snow weather to "walk the dog", attracting the other side to the woods, by our ambush troops to carry out a surprise attack, so as to defeat the enemy's main force, gain superiority in strength, and lay the foundation for subsequent siege victories.
Third, the inheritance of classics
Returning to the name "Return to the Empire", it is natural to think of the classic Age of Empires series. In fact, The Xbox Studios, which was involved in the development of the game with Tianmei, was the project team of the original "Age of Empires" series. So on the return to the Empire, you can see many shadows of the classic Empire era. Of course, as a strategic mobile game, "Return to Empire" has carried out bold changes and innovations while inheriting the elements of the end game.
"Return to the Empire" better restores the classic cultural content of the Empire series, and upgrades and iterations. Like the old empire, the game focuses on realistic style, and after entering the game, the buildings, soldiers, villagers, and even production methods in the main city make me, the end gamer, feel a sense of familiarity, and have a little bit of ye Qinghui's feelings.
At the same time, thanks to PBR, motion capture and other technologies, the game art screen has been significantly improved compared with the SLG competitors on the market. From the modeling details of the city, to the farming details of the farmers, the battlefield performance of the soldiers, to the map day and night, the season rotation, all highlight the game's intentions in art. Although SLG pays more attention to gameplay, high-quality graphics can bring more substantial improvement to the sense of gaming experience.
In terms of sound effects, "Return to Empire" continues many of the classic sound effects in the Empire end game, and when I hear "Logger", I can't help but smile, and some memories in the depths of my mind are activated. In addition to the classic tribute sound effects, the details of the game from the expedition to the battle sound effects are also very elaborate, the roar of the war horse, the roar of the warrior, the collision of cold weapons, the rich battlefield sound effects, etc., I feel the battlefield atmosphere of the Jinge Iron Horse. In the past, when I experienced SLG games, I would usually turn off the sound because there was no feature, and sometimes interrupt thinking. And when playing "Return to the Empire", I like to turn on the sound during the battlefield stage, enjoy the immersive battlefield fighting sound effects and the thick Imperial War BGM, and experience another sense of "living battlefield".
The Empire series can be recognized by the majority of players, precisely because of the game's high degree of freedom of gameplay, allowing players to use flexible strategies at will, show a kaleidoscopic battlefield style, and even use terrain advantages to achieve a variety of classic battles with less to win more. Before experiencing "Return to the Empire", I expressed concerns and doubts about the extent to which this strategic mobile game can restore the classic gameplay of the Empire series, after all, there is an insurmountable gap between the terminal game and the mobile game on the platform, but after the actual experience, the performance of this SLG mobile game in the living battlefield and flexible strategy still exceeded my initial expectations.
4. Summary
To sum up, "Return to Empire" is still more careful about the continuation and inheritance of the Empire series of end games, and from the perspective of testing experience, this will be a game that I am willing to play after the launch. If you are an iron fan of the Empire series, the classic Empire elements in the game can make you retrieve some memories of the past in many times; if you are a veteran SLG player, then I will highly recommend that this "live strategy" mobile game has better strategy depth and freedom than other SLGs, and I believe it can bring you a different war strategy experience. Finally, the game will be released in beta on March 29, and it is expected that more players will feel the charm of "live strategy" after the beta is launched.