Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns Preview

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Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns is an intriguing real-time strategy game that offers a dose of role-playing and some of the good old-fashioned addictive qualities that the Heroes of Might & Magic series brought to the table. The game is currently scheduled to ship next month, but we recently had the opportunity to play around with a late beta of this fantasy empire-builder. Although the demo version we tested offered only a pair of tutorial campaigns and a skirmish battle mode, enough of the game's slick and complex design was in place to leave a favorable impression. When it is complete, Kohan should strike a near ideal balance between originality and tried-and-true RTS elements.

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At heart, Kohan is very similar to the Heroes of Might & Magic series. You strive to build cities from which you can send armies on errands of exploration and conquest. The landscape contains numerous enemies and neutral parties as well as ancient ruins to explore and many other interesting diversions. Not much of the single-player game is in place at the moment, but the multiplayer design (as illustrated in the skirmish mode) is a very solid RTS experience. In fact, Kohan skirmishes blend together several key elements of both the Heroes of Might & Magic titles and Microsoft's Age of Empires games--not bad company, all things considered.

Like in the Heroes of Might & Magic series, heroes play a critical role in Kohan. In fact, the game's subtitle (Immortal Sovereigns) hints at the underlying theme of the action. As players construct cities, recruit armies, and set out in search of new lands to conquer, they may discover Kohan amulets scattered about the world. These let players summon immortal heroes from an earlier age. As you might guess, Kohan heroes generally have special abilities and can make armies more formidable in battle. Best of all, these heroes are immortal, so if they happen to die in battle, you can always bring them back for a mere 50 gold pieces (presumably a resurrection service charge).

Heroes are only a small part of the complex army system at work in Kohan, however. Although you want to have heroes leading as many armies as possible, it is even more important to assemble your armies in an intelligent and tactically sound way. Each army--or company--consists of a leader, a main body, and two supporting groups. If you have a Kohan hero available, you can designate it as the leader of a company. Otherwise, a generic general will be placed in charge. Then you choose the type of unit you want for each "wing" of the company. Unit types range from basic footmen and scout cavalry to more powerful forces like archers, warlocks, grenadiers, and heavy cavalry. When you recruit and commission a company, it will appear in the gameworld with only two members: the leader and the first member of the main body. The longer you let the company sit idle near a friendly town, however, the more powerful it will become.