Siegecraft Commander

I came into Siegecraft Commander ready to write it off as a mobile port dressed up for PC, and honestly, the first twenty minutes almost confirmed that. The central gimmick, physically flinging every structure and unit onto the battlefield via a slingshot-style mechanic, sounds ridiculous until it actually clicks. You're not just placing towers; you're committing to a trajectory, building a chain of interconnected outposts, garrisons, barracks, and mortar emplacements that fans out across the map like a branching tree. Block a chokepoint with the wrong building and you have walled yourself into a dead end. Land a Garrison too far forward and your Knights are spawning in enemy fire range before you can reinforce. There is real spatial thinking buried in here. The problem is that everything sitting on top of that idea is undercooked. The aiming system, regardless of which of the multiple control schemes you pick, never feels right. On PC with a mouse it is tolerable; on controller it ranges from oversensitive to outright broken, and the game clearly has console ambitions given the cross-platform matchmaking. The building roster is thin. You get outposts, armories, barracks, garrisons, libraries, Tesla Towers, mortar positions, and TNT launchers, and that is roughly it for both the Knights of Freemoi and the tribal Lizardmen factions. The two campaigns use reskinned versions of the same structures with different names, which tells you everything about the depth on offer. Each faction's campaign runs about eight levels, completable in a few hours total, and the AI is predictable enough that a patient, defensive playstyle will grind out most missions without much drama. The real-time versus turn-based toggle in multiplayer was a smart design call. Letting a slower, more deliberate player opt into timed or untimed turns alongside the frantic real-time mode could have built a wider audience. The cross-platform pool connecting PC, Xbox, and console players was equally forward-thinking for 2017. The catch: the player pool never materialised. At launch, forum posts were already asking where everyone was, and the situation has only gotten worse since. Local hot-seat multiplayer works and is probably your best bet for getting mileage out of the versus modes, but you need a willing opponent in the same room. Online matchmaking is functionally a coin flip on finding anyone. Performance also takes a hit when you build a sprawling tower network, which is precisely when the game is supposed to feel most satisfying. At a 53 on Metacritic and mixed Steam user reviews, the critical consensus lands about right. The catapult-construction concept is genuinely original, closer in spirit to the old cult title Moonbase Commander than anything in the current RTS space. If you are a strategy player who can bring a friend for local play, or you are curious enough to grind through a short campaign just to experience the mechanic, there is something here. If you are coming for a healthy ranked scene, weapon balance debates, or the satisfaction of climbing a ladder against real opponents, look elsewhere. The core loop has legs; the execution does not.

Fred · Scout Team

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