Multiplayer
Multiplayer player is an area which I’ve always felt RTSs should be particularly good at, after all, what is chess but a two player RTS? Coming back to DoW, no matter how good the programmer, eventually you’ll learn all the strategies the AI uses and you’ll figure out how to beat them. To give you a real tactical challenge, you have to go up against someone as unpredictable as yourself… another human being. Multiplayer is a cinch to set up with plenty of options for direct connect, LAN and internet play through a dedicated Lobby. The Lobby is perfect for the new and seasoned player alike. It has a built in system for ranking players so you can get an even match against someone of the same ability easily. Various rooms in the lobby cater for different matches, in a similar vein to skirmish play, so you can play against several opponents at once and kick up a right old rumpus. You don’t even have to worry about players picking fights below their ability as the game tracks how well they do. That said, I still got my bum handed to me on a plate several times. But everyone seems friendly enough and I got plenty of tips. All of that goes to show that where you might think you’re a gaming god against the computer, your tactics need to be much more refined and flexible to go up against real people.
