Time of Defiance

A pretty little spaceship

Imagine a world where a thousand tacticians and strategists spend what time they can hunched at desks, their pale faces illuminated by flickering VDUs, governing their empires from afar. Jumping between stations, they are able to instruct their plants to begin construction of the latest in mining vessels, develop the deadliest of weaponry, and chart courses between the shattered fragments of their dead homeworld. Got that image? Good - cos you're in that world right now.

The story so far

Kapow! Bang!

Millions of years ago, the planet Nespanona suffered from a bad case of hiccups, which resulted in it blowing itself to smithereens. Not to be phazed by this unfortunate occurrence, the human race decided to settle on the myriad islands of rock now floating freely in space, calling them home and using them as the building blocks for their own personal empires.

In Time of Defiance (ToD), you take the part of one such entrepreneur, scratching out a living on the surface of a collection of little floaty dust balls. Each of these islands contains varying amounts of the game's basic resources: Metal, Wood, Stone, Coal, Water, and Moss(!). Metal and wood are used primarily in the construction of ships, with coal providing the fuel supply. Stone is used for making buildings; and water and moss are largely used as currency, being somewhat thin on the ground. Moss has another sneaky use, which I shall elaborate on later.

The interface

Hey! You! Get off my cloud!

Right, class, pay attention. I shall be asking questions at the end. The summary view, the Empire view and the Planetary view are the three main screens used to play the game. The summary does what it says on the tin, the Empire view gives you an overview of the entire vast game arena (and your tiny insignificant place in it) and the planetary view shows you close ups of planets and ships.

Each of these main views is host to a multitude of pop-ups, drop-downs, and shift-overs; so much so that the initial response on loading the game is to scamper noisily towards the nearest tree. On coaxing yourself back out of the tree, you'll find that the system can be easily navigated through with a few key presses once you know how the layout works. That initial shock is a nasty one, though.

Starting out

You sunk my battleship!

A new player starts out with an island, a few ships, and a hefty players guide. The island comes complete with a quantum gate (more on these later). The island is also equipped with the basic structures required to begin building your empire - mining units, warships, and economical units. The quantum gate gives you access to the "Eighth House" - a kind of space going Wall Street - allowing you to trade with the other players in the game.

As well as other players, there are also creatures called "Shadoo" which can be traded with. The Shadoo claim to be the original inhabitants of the smouldering heaps of rock you now live on, but will cheerfully supply you with ships, weapons, and all manner of nice technology in exchange for moss. The Shadoo need moss to power their ships (no, really), so it's always a good idea to have a ready supply of it around. Being Shadoo technology, the quantum gates also require moss, so running out is generally considered a Bad Thing.

Getting going

Houston, we have a problem.

Once your base is established, it's time to head out to see if you can find any nearby islands to colonize. Sending out a scout is really the first indication of how much micromanagement is involved in ToD. If your scout begins its voyage with insufficient fuel to get there and back, it will stop and drift when its fuel is exhausted, making it necessary for you to send out a refuelling vessel. The gameplay area is huge, and sending out recovery ships when you're under stress is not good for your blood pressure.

Assuming your scout reaches an uninhabited island, it can be docked and will automatically begin mining the planetoid. Initially, resources will have to be ferried around by setting up trade routes, but once a bit of technological advancement has been made, you'll be able to beam 'em around Star Trek style. This, however, is all by the way. The main thrust of the game is...

Expansion and Occupation (i.e. War)

Here's where I keep my WMDs

Building yourself a massive (defensive, of course) fleet is absolutely essential in ToD. While it is perfectly possible for enemies to invade you through a quantum gate, thereby bypassing all your defenses, a vast flotilla of horribly beweaponed star ships will make would-be invaders sit up and take notice. Each ship can be given orders to behave in a certain way on encountering a potential enemy.

It becomes quickly apparent that it's very much easier (not to mention quicker) to occupy an already colonised world than it is to do it from scratch. You know this, and the other players know it too. As well as sending out your own vessels to harrow the borders of your competitors, you must have a strong enough fleet to defend your own territory. Negotiations can be made through the chat interface (and you can even get involved in some unofficial treaties and agreements, should you so desire). For example, it is perfectly possible (should you be of a devious nature) to convince an opponent that he has exclusive mining rights on one of "your" islands. If the opponent doesn't actually check that that island does in fact belong to you, he can be in for a world of pain from the outraged owner. War isn't just about you vs them - there's a good deal of scope for setting fellow players at each others throats, in the hope of taking an easy victory from the emerging winner.

Strategy in motion

No! Not my nice little ship!

ToD is a very slow moving game. Each game lasts for about three weeks, give or take a day or two, and the winner/losers are judged by a points system. Almost everything in the game scores points - from building a mining ship to eradicating an opponent’s favourite battleship. Such points aren't always easily gained though - a great deal of patience is required, due to the slow-moving nature of ToD. Put it this way, it takes a little under an hour to build a starship. If that illustration doesn't make it clear enough, you can tell the game to email you when something interesting happens.

This feature is a lot nicer than it sounds. It makes ToD ideal for anyone who wants an involving game without having to sit in front of their PC for eight hours at a time. You can set up a queue of instructions and ask the server to email you on completion, and then go and walk to Peru or something. Every now and again, you have a "D'oh" moment - you arrive home from work and check your mail. Oh dear - Joe Bloggs is behaving in a hostile manner. The date on the email says yesterday. Logging on, you discover your carefully crafted base is a smoking crater. It's important to keep track of events.

Crimes and Misdemeanours

Sunset on Empires

The slow game pace may put some people off, as might the difficult to learn interface. In my case, the biggest down side to the game is that it seems to be played by Einstein, Kasparov, and all their mates. Massively Multiplayer titles tend to suffer from a plague of idiots, all rushing around shouting "L@@K!! RAREZZZ!!" while giggling dementedly and clutching at their loincloths. ToD, on the other hand, is populated by considerate, thoughtful geniuses who smile politely before descending on you from a great height with a fleet of warships the size of which Darth Vader would have wet dreams about. It could be that I'm incredibly stupid, of course.

Like other massively multiplayer online games, Time of Defiance is a subscription affair. After an eight day free trial, you will be expected to cough up somewhere in the region of eight quid a month. Less than the price of three pints of beer, to put it into context. An interesting side note - the game runs perfectly over a 56K modem. No broadband required here, thank-you-very-much.

ToD is a micromangement and tactical delight. There's as much detail as you care to see - sometimes a little too much. The graphics are fully 3D accelerated, clean and beautiful. There's really not much more to be said about them - it's not that type of game. If the quality of the graphics is an important factor in considering it, you're probably going to hate it. Similarly, the sound is adequate and largely irrelevant. What Nicely Crafted has provided is a detailed and robust framework for massive-brained tacticians to use to beat people like me to a pulp. I urge you - try it out, bring them down, and when you do, shout "This is for John".