0 A.D. RTS Game

The title leaves much to be desired, but the game hits a sweet spot that has been neglected on Linux for a long time.

I'm not a fan of RTS, but every now and then I get the urge to manage my own country and hopefully live long enough not to ruin it!
Linux has been on the short end when it comes to native RTS games, there are only a handful of them around and a while ago I stumbled onto this little gem from Wildfire Games: 0 A.D.

Let me just start by saying the development on the game is spot on with timely releases and huge improvements with every other update. Since I began playing it last year it has come in leaps and bounds, especially the graphics of this game is impressive!
Quite recently they updated the in-game bots to a more challenging level, so that made the game a bit more realistic, however the AI is not that difficult to beat. It would be nice if the introduced a more advance bot in the future.

Multi-player is still not implemented, and you cannot change any settings off-hand, but hey, this is an Alpha release!

Game play is like every other RTS out there, you gather resources, build your base and attack. There are no unit and building upgrades to be had like the more modern RTS games (StarCraft 2, WarCraft, etc. for example) and the pace of the game is on the slower side, but this makes it perfect for the beginner to pick it up and start learning.
The only "upgrades" to your units can get is the special elite units that will increase damage, range, etc. of your normal units. I really can't tell if this makes a difference, just amass a large enough army and pummel the enemy is my usual strategy.

All this said, the game is still slated as an Alpha release, but what an Alpha this is! I just hope the project doesn't get abandoned and grows into a very fine game. Because of this it would be very unfair to criticize the game, so let me then just add a wish list of feature I hope they implement in future releases:

• Unit grouping - assigning key numbers to unit groups would be very nice. Micro management without this is impossible.
• Better bots to practice against - add a higher difficulty bot
• Better notifications on units build, workers being idle and buildings complete
• Notifications on units being attacked

Off the top of my head, this is the biggest features I would love to see added. If one is going to play this game at a competitive level then you really need those notifications to draw your attention while busy elsewhere on the map. I usually find myself with workers standing idle and no indication that they were finished building or working on a building. I have this eerie voice in the back of my head of a WarCraft troll shouting: "Jobs done!"

I enjoy the game, and for a challenge get three bots to gang up on you.

Here is some of the game play footage I slapped together of the latest release:

There you have it, a promising start and lets hope a successful game in the near future!