Total Annihilation: Kingdoms

Total Annihilation
Total Annihilation: Kingdoms box cover
Developer(s)	Cavedog Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Cavedog Entertainment
Platform(s)	Windows x86
Release	June 25, 1999
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy (RTS)
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms or TA:K is a medieval fantasy real time strategy game created and released by Cavedog Entertainment on June 25, 1999. On release, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms reached the top of the weekly game sales chart. While it was the last major title from Cavedog Entertainment, an expansion pack, "The Iron Plague", was released in 2000.

Overview of Differences

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms was the anticipated second installment of the Total Annihilation franchise. Although the game was neither a prequel nor a sequel to the original Total Annihilation game, comparisons between the two games were inevitable. There were numerous thematic and design differences between Total Annihilation and Total Annihilation: Kingdoms. These changes included a more in-depth storyline (told with cutscenes between missions), a change from a futuristic setting to a fantasy setting, simplified resource-management, an additional two sides to play, a unified campaign trail that had the player playing all the sides throughout the game, and a massive increase in difficulty.

Story

The story involves four sibling monarchs in their struggle to dominate the land of Darien: Elsin of Aramon, Kirenna of Veruna, Thirsha of Zhon and Lokken of Taros, following the disappearance of their father, Garacaius.

A more detailed story and world was presented in Total Annihilation: Kingdoms than was in Total Annihilation. The missions coincided with the storyline that was presented. In one example, a cutscene describes that the side of Aramon obtains the use of gunpowder. In that mission, the player plays the side of Aramon where using a gunpowder-based unit is critical towards the success of that mission. The game booklet and a detailed HTML atlas of Darien also added further background information to the storyline.

Complexity

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms reduced the number of resource types from the two found in Total Annihilation (Metal and Energy) to one: Mana or magical energy.

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms also opted for fewer units than its predecessor. This was due, in part, to the added complexity of the models, animation and textures required for living creatures (versus the robots and machines of Total Annihilation), but also to allow the development team more opportunity to add unique, meaningful units over time. This may or may not have succeeded, since the smaller unit count was immediately seen as a drawback and the game itself did not remain popular long enough to see the creation of many additional units by third parties.

Units and sides

Where Total Annihilation had largely parallel technology trees between two similar sides, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms tried a more diversified approach. The sides were made to greatly vary from one another. The side of Aramon had many "traditional" ground units such as knights, but also had a large number of heavily fortified buildings and defensive structures. Aramon's weakness was that they had hardly any sea or air units. Veruna, on the other hand, had many sea units and several mobile siege engines. The side of Zhon (represented by animal-like beasts) has no structures at all (other than resource generation and one defensive structure), as all units were built by others, leading to huge armies that were constantly moving. Taros, a stereotypical "evil" race, had a number of powerful magical units that required a lot of micromanagement to use properly. The fifth race, Creon (added in the expansion pack The Iron Plague) had aspects of all the other races, but in particular had very destructive but overall delicate structures. Creon also had the most powerful unit in the game, the ghost of Garacaius, but such a unit took so long to build that it was rarely seen in the game.

Interface

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms did feature a number of refinements and improvements with its interface design. The design ethic and innovations started with Total Annihilation were expanded, including infinite production queues, non-linear/interruptible queues and a fully playable mini-map mode. Squad designations for groups of units were easier and more intuitive than they were in TA. As in TA, TA:Kingdoms also allowed players to see translucent images of all unbuilt structures in a build queue.

Campaign trails

The idea of a campaign sequence for each side was eliminated in favor of a single linear path that alternates between the four sides: Aramon, Taros, Veruna and Zhon. This allowed the developers to put all of their effort into a single narrative and its associated artwork.

Online Multiplayer

Due to Cavedog's closing, players cannot play online through the game's multiplayer option. In order to play online, a separate client must be used. A commonly used client is Warzone. This client allows for all the features that Cavedog's original inbuilt client did. Up to 8 players can play together at a time either on teams or against one another.

The Iron Plague expansion set

Shortly before Cavedog's collapse, an expansion pack was released titled The Iron Plague. The premise of the sequel continued the storyline of the lost father of magic, Garacaius. Believing that magic was a source of conflict, Garacaius fled his kingdom and founded a new empire based on science and engineering, as opposed to magic. This new empire, Creon, quickly dominated the neighboring provinces and absorbed the knowledge of their conquests. Garacaius himself died, but the elected ruler of Creon (in a steam-powered robotic suit) eventually led the kingdom on a crusade against magic and the magical sibling rulers of Darian. The expansion pack added an entirely new faction to the game (the science and engineering kingdom of Creon), as well as hundreds of new maps and entirely new graphics for map tile sets. The game also was to be the flagship title for Boneyards, which was Cavedog's equivalent of Battle.net as a central server for online multiplayer games. The game also added numerous new units to the existing factions, and rebalanced many of the units due to popular feedback.

Community

Though never billed as a sequel or prequel to Total Annihilation, TA:Kingdoms carried with it the expectations engendered by the "Total Annihilation" in its name. Total Annihilation: Kingdoms did attain a reasonable measure of success with the number of units sold and its own following which is active to this day.

Like Total Annihilation, Kingdoms still has a large fanbase. Over the years, many creative fans have built their own races and units. The best known races are Azurian, Delean, Tyrak and Brakada. Units come in various sorts; some of them perfectly fit into the game, some are just decent and some are just fun. There are even some total conversions made for TA: Kingdoms; including the Conflict of Arda TC (based upon The Lord of the Rings) and an Age of Wonders TC (based upon the game Age of Wonders). Add-ons are still made. The TA: Kingdoms third party community stands in the shadow of the TA community, but is still popular. The newest project is "TAK: The Beginning", made by a small group of veteran and new unitbuilders as an alternative prequel to the TA: Kingdoms storyline.

References

• "The Unofficial Guide to TA: Kingdoms" (PDF). The Stratos Group. Retrieved 2007-03-06.
• Radcliffe, Doug. "Total Annihilation: Kingdoms Game Guide". Gamespot. GameGuides.com. Retrieved 2007-03-06. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• PhoeniX WorX - TA's online multiplayer
• Warzone multiplayer client
• Mirror of Official website