Siegecraft Commander Xbox One Review

Siegecraft Commander is a mixture of RTS and tower defense that has a lot to offer. The single-player campaign gives you an in-depth tutorial of all the major mechanics of the game before diving into multiplayer. It may not offer an enticing story-rich single-player adventure but the deep competitive gameplay will have you hooked for hours.

The campaign is separated into two sections, Voyage for Glory and Crusade of Hope. Voyage for Glory has players joining the Knights of Freedoi in their journey for treasure and Crusade of Hope has you fighting the corrupted Hurtrade Tribe. Both offer unique perspectives and each with 8 different missions to complete with increasingly difficult battles. Depending on your level of skill the campaign can be completed in 4-10 hours for both sides. The story is forgettable and the narrative is told through text delivered via a book.

As the commander, it’s up to you to build and command forces to overwhelm and eventually destroy the enemy’s base of operations. Outpost serve as the primary fortification to extending your reach and building other structures. Each building and weapon also crafts a pathway from the point of origin to the end point. Airships and Dragons/Wyverns can pass overhead but all ground forces cannot pass. This is when Siegecraft Commander strategic elements begin to shine.

While maintaining a balance between offense and defensive structures is paramount to victory space and positioning also plays an important role. Since you or the enemy cannot intersect tracks maintaining a clear path is necessary to ensure mobility efficiently. Ground forces can only walk around pathways and build a structure that intersects a building’s path, friendly or hostile, will immediately destroy it. 

Deploying these various structures takes practice. Building requires the player to target the direction and determine the distance of where the structure will land. If completed the structure is built and the player can continue crafting. If unsuccessful, depending on the building, the player will have to wait for a specific duration in order to craft again. This penalty adds to the stress of having to build quickly and efficiently since one wrong mistake can lead to a series of issues later on in the match. In addition, players cannot unbuild a structure once it has been crafted and must destroy the building in order to free up space,  sacrificing precious time. Specific options are locked behind special resources which must be located on the map and seized before they can be used.

Since no distance indicator is present when aiming you’ll have to memorize the distance of each draw of your bow indicator. You can change the way you aim from Slingshot, which resets when you release the trigger, or Precision, which allows you to aim using the triggers. The control pad allows you to switch quickly between recently build structures but the camera is adequate enough that moving from one area of the map to another isn’t demanding. Helpful indicators appear when friendly forces take a hit to ensure the player is aware of what’s happening outside of view.

Siegecraft Commander's domino effect is what kept me on edge. When a building is destroyed everything built after its creation and connected via the pathway is destroyed in a chain of explosions. This means destroying one structure that connects a series of other buildings can leave you defenseless, forcing you to constantly be aware of all your forces and not just the frontline.  

With this severe weakness, players have to plan ahead to cover all forms of attack. Everything can be countered but with limited space planning is key. You want to build ballista to shoot down airships but these are auto targeting defenses can be tricked into shooting oncoming fire before needing to reload. Mortars can devastate ground forces but leave you open to aerial attacks. Since only specific buildings can create certain structures having a healthy balance of varied structures is necessary to success.

Your Outpost can be used offensively to hurl TNT barrels towards enemy targets but a bulk of the fighting will be done by your NPC forces. You don’t have control over your ground forces but luckily they usually head to the primary target. However, those hoping to multitask with varied platoons of NPCs will find this frustrating since everything is automatic. Airships are limited to flying in one direction upon deployment and dragons operate similar to ground forces but fly. 

Multiplayer has you taking control of one of four commanders, two from the Voyage of Glory and two from the Knights of Freedoi. Each has their own personal set of traits that can be customized but share similar tech trees base on their allegiance. Facing against real players offers a greater challenge than CPU opponents.

Battles can be fought in real-time or turn-base either offline or online in one of five maps, each with their unique terrain. Custom options are available for those who wish to alter the options. Players can face against players within their own platform or go cross-platform against PC players.

Siegecraft Commander is refined RTS with a lot to offer. Its combination of RTS and tower defense offers a lot of content for those seeking challenging battles. If you’re not a fan of RTS or tower defense games Siegecraft Commander won’t change your mind but for everyone else, this is an excellent title for either casual or hardcore gamers.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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