The inclusion of buildable fortifications works towards allowing spatial dominance of the battlefield as a viable and interesting tactical approach, but the mechs don’t compliment this in an interesting way. They can crush sandbags underfoot, sure, but they’re also unable to scale even slight elevations. The presence on the battlefield that the audiovisual design works so hard to establish is undermined by the mech’s inability to navigate difficult terrain. Practically, he mechs veer to the simplistic side, effectively acting how large vehicles would in any other RTS do. Artillery from both mechs and gun emplacements leave muddy craters where they land, and larger mechs will walk straight through buildings, levelling them like card houses. In battle, they’ll fall apart as they take damage, and eventually stagger and fall when felled, leaving smoking wrecks on the battlefield. Lumbering chimeras that have stepped out of furnace-heated workshops, sparked into existence at the point where low and high technology meet and scrape up against one another. The mechs are the main event here, the equivalent to tanks in this alt-history, and they’re incredibly impressive visually. Saxony’s mechs are powerful, lumbering things, while Polania favours mid-range skirmishers, and Rusviet powerful melee options. Polanian basic infantry have rifles, Rusviet shotguns, and Saxony SMG’s, each offering different range and damage potential. That’s not to say there’s no differences between these minor choices, and the three factions do have a fair amount to separate them. On the other hand, it diminishes infantry variety between factions, since each of the three playable sides need to have roughly equivalent choices for this to work. This is neat because it occasionally makes soldiers grow beards in an instant, but it also means more opportunities to respond to, rather than just predict, your opponent. If your unit of rifleman mops up a unit of machine-gunners, for example, they can then collect their weapons, transforming them into your faction’s version of that unit. The slightly-arcadey immediacy present in the point capture also exists in the way infantry units can swap roles on the fly. With cover being as useful as it is, identifying and reinforcing chokepoints can be extremely powerful, providing yet more choices over when to focus on defence, and when to press the attack. The highly versatile engineer can place sandbags, pillboxes, barbed wire, and mines, as well as repair the mechs. Instead, most of the strategic elements in holding positions come from fortifications. Both the Barracks and Workshop can be upgraded, but there’s no complex building chains or tech trees. The result is dynamic, involved skirmishes with ever-shifting fronts.īase building itself consists of just three structures: a Headquarters, a Barracks for infantry, and a Workshop for mechs. Deathballing – amassing a huge blob of powerful units to sweep the map – is too slow to be viable. The game rewards regular, well-timed raids over biding your time. It also means that staying put to defend a base and build up forces won’t work here. Each iron and oil refinery held means you can produce a steadier supply of reinforcements. While the core of Iron Harvest is a dynamic and often exciting RTS that pays tribute to Company of Heroes and Dawn of War, mechanical intricacies can often seem like an afterthought alongside the glorious smoke and mirrors of its outer casing.Ī standard skirmish or multiplayer match in Iron Harvest is always going to be a desperate, constant scrap over resources and victory points until one side gets the upper hand, giving them the edge they need to overwhelm their opponent. Just like the mechs that populate its Dieselpunk alt-history battlegrounds, Iron Harvest is a creaky, imperfect contraption, but one that’s clearly been bolted together with love and undeniable charm. Also, like its outlandish and inventive mechs, it’s welded together with an eye for form over function.
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