TAK reviews just suck!

Guys, one of the main reasons Total Annihilation: Kingdoms is not considered one of the best Real Time Strategy games ever (like the original Total Annihilation does) is because of some awfully negative reviews about TAK and because of the very low ranking in these reviews. However, if you read those reviews, you will understand that the people who wrote it hadn't played TAK a lot but just a little and reviewed it like noobs. Or, maybe, they were payed in order to axe TAK in favor of other RTS making companies (you never know what kind of conspiracy lurks behind). Here follows some of these reviews (and see by your own eyes, dear community member, how wrong they are in most of their part!):

--GAME SPOT REVIEW-- RATING: 6.6 / 10

It isn't often that an upstart game company breaks through with a major hit, but when Cavedog released Total Annihilation in late 1997, that's what happened. A year and a half later, Cavedog is trying to follow suit with Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, a fantasy real-time strategy game that is an apparent effort to reclaim the interest of Total Annihilation fans. And while Kingdoms does include four different playable factions and a much more interesting story than Total Annihilation did, Cavedog's second game suffers from a long list of problems that collectively prevent it either from exceeding its ancestor or from rejuvenating a tired genre.

You can begin to see what's wrong with it right from the start. Although the graphics in Kingdoms are more detailed than those of its science fiction-themed precedent, the jagged-edged polygonal graphic style was far better suited to the rough-hewn metallic shapes of Total Annihilation than the more organic style of Kingdoms' designs. The consequence is that it's not so easy to tell one unit from the next in Kingdoms, and while some look distinctive, such as the kingdom Veruna's massive warships and dirigibles or Zhon's squid-like krakens, many or even most others look plain at best and messy at worst. The flat 2D backdrops aren't much better, and the 3D units clash against them much like they did in Cavedog's first game.

The Kingdoms graphics engine, only slightly enhanced since Total Annihilation, makes limited use of 3D acceleration to accentuate certain special effects but does not take advantage of your card in order to enhance the game's frame rate or smooth the edges on the polygons. Even if you have a very fast machine, you'll still find that the game's frame rate bogs down noticeably during large-scale battles on account of the software rendering, which not only makes the game look worse than it could have, but proves to be a serious detriment during gameplay.

Yet while Kingdoms' graphics aren't all that bad, it's difficult to find anything nice to say about the game's sound effects. The dozens of robotic units in Total Annihilation could be easily forgiven for their plain mechanical noises, which seemed appropriate even if altogether uninspiring. But in Kingdoms, which is evidently modeled after Blizzard's character-driven real-time strategy games, the sound effects are mediocre and often downright bad and cannot be excused as easily because the game professes to have so much more context than its predecessor. If the various units sounded interesting, that might have gone a long way toward lending the game the sort of personality and idiosyncrasy that helped make Blizzard's real-time strategy games so popular.

At other times, the sound in Kingdoms seems altogether unfinished, and events for which you'd expect audible cues, like unit construction and healing, are strangely silent. Even the game's soundtrack leaves something to be desired, and while the orchestral score is the work of the same Jeremy Soule who lent Total Annihilation its incredible soundtrack, the music in Kingdoms is a missed opportunity to play up the differences between the four warring factions. Though the countries involved in the conflict each have opposing morals and ideals, the soundtrack suggests little evidence of this and drones slowly and similarly for all four sides.

At least the story holds up rather well, which is told as though it were a historical narrative, through the static painting montage style of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. The single-player campaign spans nearly 50 missions, each of which is preceded by a cutscene that sets the stage for the ensuing battle. While the cutscenes are often interesting, just as often, the missions themselves are not. The Total Annihilation engine apparently isn't equipped to handle complex scripted situations, and so the missions' supposed surprises and twists tend to be underwhelming. And aside from the quirkier escort and defense missions, you're stuck with the usual formula of having to wipe out all your enemies. The cutscenes prove to be the biggest incentive to play through the campaign, which is unfortunate since Kingdoms should be at least as enjoyable to play as it is to watch.

There are few obvious problems with how Kingdoms plays but plenty of more subtle ones. While the game carries over its predecessor's sleek interface, which readily allows you to set unit waypoints and building-production queues, the game moves slowly and feels awkward. You're responsible for only a single resource, which is generated continuously when you build a lodestone on the right spot. Lodestones are fragile, and you'll almost always have to spread yourself thin setting them up, and what's more, they rarely provide you with the kind of resources you'll wish you had. In consequence, your armies must be assembled deliberately and specifically, as certain types of units on each side are simply more effective than their weaker counterparts. Why should Taros build zombies when executioners do the same job so much better? With very little base building and resource management to deal with, your goal in Kingdoms is to assemble a large army as quickly as possible.

When you're ready to strike, using combined arms seems neither entirely necessary nor necessarily practical; certain flying units are extremely powerful in groups and can attack without fear of retaliation from the game's more common units that carry short-range weapons. These ground units also tend to get cluttered together, and since certain spells and ballistic attacks affect a wide area, you're liable to lose a great many warriors at once as you try to storm the enemy's position. Defensive structures are very powerful, long-range ballistic weapons are very fragile, and most melee units are so slow that they get mowed down before they can get close enough to attack. Furthermore, unlike ranged units, melee units won't attack their enemies while moving, unless you expressly order them to engage a target. In practice, many of your melee units will stand idly by in combat while the front ranks take a few practice swings, rather than the lot of them surrounding their enemies en masse. On top of that, there's no way to tell how far your units can detect their enemies on the map, which makes it very difficult to gauge just how many enemies there are in an area, or whether they're anywhere nearby in the first place.

For all these reasons, it is difficult to mount a successful attack in Kingdoms. If you let a battle drag on for too long, it's liable to drag on even longer since resources are unlimited and defensive structures so deadly. Since you're restricted to a 250-unit limit, and there are no all-powerful melee or artillery units (nothing like Total Annihilation's Big Bertha cannon), it's easy and tempting to kick back and defend, and watch your enemy waste dozens of troops trying vainly to breach your perimeter. All the while, your defensive units rack up more and more kills, and achieve veteran status, making them even less likely to be eliminated. And should your foe waste the huge amount of time and resources to summon a holy dragon, the superunit of Kingdoms, know that just a few defensive towers placed in close proximity will be able to take it down. With these concerns in mind, it seems almost a moot point to question the play balance between the four sides in the game, which are intriguingly different but perhaps too much so in certain ways. For instance, Veruna is the only kingdom with a serious navy, making it an obvious choice for water maps while the asset goes to waste in any other situation. Then again, the game doesn't include many multiplayer maps in the first place, and there's only a single two-player map in the whole lot. And they all take a really long time to load.

The best thing Kingdoms has going for it is that it has no real competition right now. It's not a bad game, and if you're starving for real-time strategy, there's enough in Kingdoms to hold your interest for a while. Cavedog promises to provide new units and maps for download regularly, and the included map editor means you might find another two-player map to play on soon enough. Plus you get free online play courtesy of the Boneyards service, which means Kingdoms can indeed keep you busy if you choose to overlook its problems or find ways to work around them. But the fact is, Kingdoms is not a better game than Total Annihilation, nor does it approach the other real-time strategy games it hopes to emulate.

--IGN REVIEW-- RATING: 6.9 / 10

High off their success from Total Annihilation, Cavedog wasted no time in getting back into the game with another real-time strategy game. Even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the original title, they named their new game, set in a fantasy world, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms to tell purchasers that they could expect the same level of excellence from this product as they enjoyed in the company's last release. Unfortunately this just isn't so. While there's no doubt that Kingdoms looks worlds better than Total Annihilation, the developers seem to have forgotten just how important things like unit design, game balance and level concept can be when putting together an RTS.

Kingdoms' storyline is actually pretty \"****\" good. A powerful wizard/inventor, Garacaius, brings together the entire planet by flexing his magical and muscle and using his unequaled powers of leadership. Afterward he settles down to enjoy his efforts and fathers four children, all of whom are pretty remarkable in their own right (personally I'd have thrown back the one with bat ears, but I'm pretty weird about that kind of stuff). After many years, the Empress of the land died in a boating accident. Garacaius was never the same and eventually split rulership of the land, and possession of his magic items, up among his four children. To Elsin, the most normal looking of the lot (and an aspiring engineer of no mean talents) he gave Aramon, the fairest of the four lands and a pendant containing the magical Stone of Darien. To Thirsha, the dark haired huntress he gave the wild woods of Zhon and a bracelet containing Soul of Khandra. To his dark mage-son Lokken, Garacaius gave the volcanic and dangerous land of Taros along with a scepter forged around Angvir's Flame, a mystical stone. Finally, he turned over the island lands of Veruna to his youngest daughter Kirenna and entrusted her with the stone called Macha's Tear. After his land was split, Garacaius returned to his throne (which contained within it the last of the five great artifacts, the Eye of Modron) and hid away from his former responsibilities. Ten years later, he and the stone disappeared mysteriously from the castle.

Okay, there's a little mystery, but so what? You've got four lands and four kings all of whom are particularly well suited to govern their land. As a matter of fact, things do go pretty smoothly for the next 1,527 years. All of the kids are still running their prospective kingdoms, granted immortality by their artifacts and their kingdoms have grown to be even more prosperous since they have come under control of rulers who care only about the needs and demands of that specific region. Unfortunately (and perhaps predictably) it doesn't last. With their father out of the picture, some of the mage-kings (particularly Lokken) have decided that they are no longer satisfied with what land they have been given. As the game begins, the undead armies of Lokken are marching on Aramon. Now comes your part.

If you've played any RTS game, you have a pretty good idea of how Kingdoms works. Before each mission you are given a short cutscene, which looks like it crawled straight off a History channel documentary, that explains which army you will be in control of and what the current political situation is. Once the game gets rolling you collect mana (the game's only resource) from powerstones (which can only be placed on certain areas of the map), build units and then send them out against the enemy army. The entire game is portrayed as if you were hovering over the action from a fixed distance and the critters in the game are big enough to find quickly with your mouse when you need 'em. Furthermore, the entire game looks amazing, with impressively detailed 3D characters moving fluidly over an equally beautiful 2D map. So far, so good. Now let's take a look at why it doesn't work as well as it should.

The first problem I had with the game is its bizarre play structure. Instead of giving you the chance to play as each of the four kingdoms separately, taking your kingdom to victory through a connected series of battles, you play out the entire conflict from all sides at once. At the beginning of each battle, you are dropped in the role of either attacker or aggressor and given a task that pertains to what is happening on the political landscape at that particular time. While I applaud the attempt at something new, as a storytelling device it simply doesn't work. Since you never play as the same country from game to game, you cease to have a vested interest in what happens. While there's no doubt that the game's cutscenes make you want to finish a level and find out what happens next, after a few battles, you'll realize that you don't give a \"****\" about the people that you're in control of. After all, they may be the enemy next time around... Why should I care when Thirsha finds herself in danger towards the end of a battle? She attacked my troops in the last mission. Worse still, since you're switching about so often, it's really hard to become an expert with any of the different sides and their units. After about four hours with this game, I was completely oblivious to who I was playing in a given mission and what their goals were. Each mission I would take a quick look at what units were available to me and where the mana sources were, then I started building without any emotional attachment whatsoever. Which brings me to my next set of problems.

In nearly every RTS that has hit shelves, making the best use out of the resources you have is one of the most important skills to master. In Command & Conquer, for example, if you waste all of your Tiberium on building useless units, you'll be screwed by the end game. The same can be said for Warcraft, Starcraft, and oddly enough, Total Annihilation. In Kingdoms, mana is unlimited. As long as you can get a powerstone on a source area, you can start generating the raw stuff that you need to make units. Once again, while I appreciate the design team trying something new, it just doesn't work in practice. With few exceptions, each mission consists of you building up a big defense and building as many units as you are allowed to (the game has a unit cap, which really bugs me... where's the suspension of disbelief here?) and then marching your huge army against the enemy fortress. This is really fun towards the beginning of the game (you get to see large troop masses right off the bat), but quickly becomes mighty dull after the fifth or sixth time you see it happen. Especially when you consider how similar a lot of your units are.

That's right, I said similar. Although it looks at first glance like Kingdoms has a ridiculous assortment of different units for each side, on closer examination you'll realize that many of them are merely variations on a theme. On the Veruna side, for instance, you have the Warrior and the Berserker. Both of them are hand-to-hand units that serve almost identical purposes. Since resources are unlimited, why on Earth would I ever want to bother building a Warrior (answer: I wouldn't). The same sort of thing can be said for Veruna's Crossbowman and Musketeer, Aramon's Swordsman and Barbarian, Zhon's Beast Handler, Beast Tamer and Beast Lord and Taros' Zombie and Executioner. Many of the so-called 'different units' are just stronger versions of the same unit that render their predecessor obsolete. It would be really cool to see an army constructed of five or six different units, but most of the time you'll see a large mass of foot soldiers, a large mass of archers and some flying creatures acting as support. Once again, after a few plays, this gets really dull and you have a feeling that you've seen it all before. Worse still, you'll find that most of the units don't seem to be play tested all that well, with defensive units holding a remarkable advantage over unbelievably weak offensive units that crumble after a couple of solid blows. Launching a successful attack becomes more about getting there before an enemy has created a defensive structure than finding weakness in that structure and overcoming them.

Which brings us to unit control. I had all sorts of pathing problems, but that's not the real issue here. The real problem is that hand-to-hand units, when told to move to a particular location, will not attack anything until they get to that location. This means that if you tell a group to move to certain area, you must watch them every step of the way. If you take your eyes off of them for a second and they run into enemy resistance, they'll be hacked to pieces by the enemy area as they shove through. You can almost see their little faces mouthing, "Excuse me please, I just need to get through here." The drudgery of watching every move my troops made often became overwhelming and I would catch myself powering down for the night long before my allotted playtime was up.

There's plenty of other smaller problems with Kingdoms (like the lukewarm soundtrack), but I think I've hit all the high points. And the fact is, Kingdoms isn't really all that bad. The real disappointment is that a startup company, who seemed to have such a good grasp on what makes real-time strategy games work well, would take such a good looking game and ruin it with amateur's mistakes. If you've gotten plenty bored with Starcraft and are looking for a new strategy title to gobble up your summer days, you'll probably find some distraction with Kingdoms. If your money's tight though, and you can only afford to buy the very best, you'll probably want to save up for the next big thing.

i didnt read the review now, but yes i know it sucks
game is pretty good for that time i can say is good until today, is a game with a unique gameplay(excpet TA) that is a fact that cant be ignored.

^{Since resources are unlimited, why on Earth would I ever want to bother building a Warrior (answer: I wouldn't). The same sort of thing can be said for Veruna's Crossbowman and Musketeer, Aramon's Swordsman and Barbarian, Zhon's Beast Handler, Beast Tamer and Beast Lord and Taros' Zombie and Executioner.}

yea, they didnt play multiplayer game...

Guys, I read the reviews which I posted again and, OMG, I can swear that they haven't played the game at all!!! I mean, come on, 90% of these reviews are not true!! Before you review a game, you have to play it for hours and hours and try different things each time, not to just finish the TAk campaign, play a skirmish or two, play a multiplayer match or two and then review it while you believe you're an expert in the game!
* I have to say only one thing to the guys from GameSpot and IGN:
Congratulations! You are professionals! Because of your so excellent reviews about Total Annihilation Kingdoms, a RTS which could have driven the fantasy genre into a totally different dimension was axed without mercy. You should be proud of yourselves! Keep up the good work! However, do not forget that you should never axe the Age of Empires series or the Warcraft series, despite the fact that each new title of this series is by 70% a copy of the previous title. It is not right for professionals of your level to disobey big companies, like Microsoft or Blizzard, is it? Just axe little companies, like Cavedog for example, in order not to establish a position in the video gaming industry. Don't forget what happened with the original Total Annihilation. It appeared out of nowhere and it had almost made Blizzard's Starcraft to be seen as B class RTS! This shouldn't happen again! If TAK had established itself, then the rest medieval RTS, like Warcraft and Age of Empires, whould have the same problem! So, well done for axing it!! Congratulations, again!!!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Guys, first of all, I announce with great pleasure: "My exam period is finally over and I am available for online TA:K matches again!"
I would also like to explain to some people that this game is NOT DEAD AT ALL! A game dies when everyone stops playing it. As long as there are at least two guys who play TA:K online, this game is ALIVE! Long live Total Annihilation: Kingdoms!
And something else: White, please go and learn Portuguese, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, German, Korean, Arabic etc. As you can see, there are plenty of non-English languages. I love the English language, I admit that, however you should know that English is not the only language which exists today, White.

That is good i finish my course at night next week, but i guess we wont see each other because of the hour =/

Unfortunately, I didn't make a break because I really wanted to but because I had to. As you may know, I am not good in time management, so I couldn't study my lessons and play TA:K during my exam period. The truth is I have no perfect knowledge in English, however I can't deny that my English skill is above average for a non-native English speaker (ehh, I mean, writer).
-> TA:K is not dead. It is UNDEAD and it will drink the blood of the infidels, like White, Clay, Sammael etc.

NOOBHAWK wrote:

Well you could have played instead of reading and using forum, that's what I mean. I shouldn't play too, especially in the exams period. My teachers say I should focus, like I have to. But I play anyway. You could say I have to take break, but I simply don't do it. Thattt's what I mean. I wasn't talking about the language dominance either, I mean the way you deal with the situations here. I get upset too easily.

Yes, that's true, I may could play instead of watching these forums, but watching and commenting is something that takes less than 5 minutes while actually playing the game requires 5-10 minutes at least. If I was better at time management or if I was faster in studying I would play. Anyway, in which hour are the most people on Game Ranger? There were a few times I logged in Game Ranger just to find it empty or full of inactive players. Sometimes, if I have the patience to wait for a few minutes, someone comes and I have a 1v1 at least. However, most of the time no one comes and I lose my patience for waiting, so I leave.

At last, a true review about TA:Kingdoms!!!

http://www.gamevortex.com/gamevortex/soft_rev.php/2398/total-annihilation-kingdoms-pc.html

TA:Kingdoms Game Vortrex's score: 100%

Take that you Gamespot arseholes! Why Game Vortrex's review isn't in the English wikipedia, by the way?

EDIT: Here are a few more interesting links!
http://absolutewrite.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-149871.html
http://www.dansdata.com/tak.htm
http://www.firingsquad.com/games/takingdoms/verdict.asp
http://www.gamesfirst.com/reviews/derek/TAKingdoms/takingdoms.htm
http://www.squidoo.com/top-5-pc-strategy-games

Seriously, I wouldnt give this game score 100% even I am big fan.
Many bugs, graphic isnt that great (even for year when it comes out), AI is most stupid I seen in strategy games and missions coud be better done, scripts sucks. Look for example how scripts can be done in starcraft 1. Overall I would give about 80%

myst wrote:

Seriously, I wouldnt give this game score 100% even I am big fan.
Many bugs, graphic isnt that great (even for year when it comes out), AI is most stupid I seen in strategy games and missions coud be better done, scripts sucks. Look for example how scripts can be done in starcraft 1. Overall I would give about 80%

* Many bugs: True, but all RTS games had bugs in their firsts unpatched release, which are fixed later by their companies. Unfortunately, Cavedog collapsed before managing and correcting every single bug of the game.

* Graphics aren't great for its time: False, we are talking about a 1999 medieval fantasy RTS game and yes, for its time it had the best medieval graphics for an RTS ever! Map tiles are awesome, neutral buildings/trees/rocks/waves also look really great and the animation of the 3D units was far beyond its time. Have you noticed that Swordsmen have 3 different animations for their swing attacks (one sword slashing from the left, one sword slashing from the right and one sword piercing strike)? Have your eyes caught the golden equipment the various troops get when their veterancy status rise? Haven't you compared the detail of the TAK ships and TAK dragon models with the detail of other 3D RTS of the past?
Look at Age of Empires II, a game which is considered to have better graphics than TAK. First of all, its cliffs look totally flat if they go near the edge of the map, its graphics is totally 2D compared to TAK 3D units, the animations of a building collapsing or a ship shinking are pure jokes in comparison with TAK's ship/building wreckages. And the list is still going...

* AI is the most stupid I've seen in RTS: True, now that we are all experts in TA:Kingdoms, but false when we started playing this game, since we were total noobs and AI raped us without mercy.

* Missions could be better done, script sucks, look at Starcraft scripting: False, in most programming issues it doesnt matter the quality of the programming language, but the way you use it. Encountering new units and adding them to your team, enemies spawing at certain moments, allying forces arriving out from nowhere and merging with your own have happened in the Book of Darien or in the Iron Plague campaigns at least once. The only thing Starcraft has and TAK hasn't are the in-mission dialogues, if I remember correctly.
As an overall, TAK campaign can beat the campaign of all other RTSes combined every day!!! The documentary styled cinematics were absolutely brilliant, much more artistic and serious work than any other cinematic of an RTS with modern 3D graphics! The story is pure epicness and the idea of changing sides during the campaign is tremendous!
The only true thing is that they could add more depth in some missions, since there is always room for improvement.

* Overall I would give it 80%: Pretty good rating, I don't complain, however if I personally don't give a pure 10/10 to Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, then I won't ever rate with 100% any other real-time strategy in existence. Such a great game I think TAK is...

Let's get real.

This game is over 13 years old. There's far better ones out there now with more dynamic game mechanics, better graphics, and better story lines. Not to mention more players.

This game is really not that good this day in age. The only reason I still play it from time to time is because I kick some serious \"***\" at it.

This game is a good game, could have been great. Maybe the greatest.

But it wa$n't.

Hatebreeder-DB wrote:

Let's get real.

This game is over 13 years old. There's far better ones out there now with more dynamic game mechanics, better graphics, and better story lines. Not to mention more players.

This game is really not that good this day in age. The only reason I still play it from time to time is because I kick some serious \"***\" at it.

Games with more dynamic game mechanics, better graphics and more players, yes I agree with you here. But with better storylines, no there is not another RTS with better storyline than Book Of Darien and Iron Plague campaigns and there is not a better and more detailed world than Darien.
As for playing because you kick some serious butts here, I just pity you, Hatebreeder, because I play it just for the fun, while you play just for the win.
I don't know if you have noticed it, but what you have just mentioned for playing TAK because you win means that you wouldn't play if you lose on it, so Landherr was right about you for living TAK when you got your butt kicked by him! I fell sorry for you, Hatebreeder...

Hello

Just BTW
Have you ever seen that video "The Witch Project"?
Where some dudes enter cavedog and etc


About the actual talk, there are different arguments and points of views about TAK but none of them is wrong

IMP_ARTHAN wrote:

Games with more dynamic game mechanics, better graphics and more players, yes I agree with you here. But with better storylines, no there is not another RTS with better storyline than Book Of Darien and Iron Plague campaigns and there is not a better and more detailed world than Darien.
As for playing because you kick some serious butts here, I just pity you, Hatebreeder, because I play it just for the fun, while you play just for the win.
I don't know if you have noticed it, but what you have just mentioned for playing TAK because you win means that you wouldn't play if you lose on it, so Landherr was right about you for living TAK when you got your butt kicked by him! I fell sorry for you, Hatebreeder...

Lol let's not take things serious... I did and I just wasted my time, although I proved that TDs and 6t6s and anyone else aren't different than the noobs they owned - few people don't quit when they lose. Hatebreeder was still playing once in a while when I was still playing many months ago, and the only reason I disrespected him is because he used to be cocky and would disrespect me too lol. Maybe he lacks a bit of speed (no big deal) but he definitely knows a lot about TA:K and few people from any time can take him on especially in spread mana maps.

Arthan people play for different reasons, kicking \"***\" is fun too lol. Maybe we're all trying to sound superior, is it with skills, is it with being smart (I just play for fun so I'm better than everyone huhu!), doesn't matter lol.

And Spagg I saw that video 1st time in my TA:K cd and it's on youtube too I think

^
Ok then, I will just have fun with Hatebreeder and everyone else, like I did before. About Spagg's video, yes I have saw it on youtube about a year ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wwCiaHUmtE

Everyone can have his/her opinion about Total Annihilation: Kingdoms. However, when someone use his/her arguments about why TA:K is bad, then I will answer by writing my arguments now and I usually write a lot, lmao!
Anyway, long live TAK!

I just happened to read StarCraft's Wikipedia article and I just couldn't hold myself from posting and discussing a part of it here:

Generally, StarCraft was received positively by critics, with many contemporary reviewers noting that while the game may not have deviated significantly from the status quo of most real-time strategy games, it was one of the best to have applied the formula. In addition, StarCraft's pioneering use of three distinct, unique and balanced races over two equal sides was praised by critics, with GameSpot commenting that this helped the game to "avoid the problem that has plagued every other game in the genre".

Dudes, TA:Kingdoms came just a yaer later and included 4-5 unique races instead of just 3! Furthermore, TA:K has even better application of the strategical formula.
In other words, if these two are the main advantages of StarCraft, then TA:K has already proven itself a better game. Enough said, time to study again...