][1]I was reading a post by The Morning Toast about his renewed interest in Turn Based Strategy games and it got my hankering for some TBS as well. I love puzzle/strategy games, so it got me thinking about online games.
I was curious to see what was available so I ran a quick search on Google. I started scanning the results, but stopped at the second item on the list. It read, "Award winning turn based multi-player strategy game on Weewar.com." Well... that deserves a click!
The first thing I notice is how neat and clean the site is - very easy to use and I love easy to use! So, I signed up for an account - they had me at "free" - and started poking around the site. I thought the site would have all types of options and pages and links, but it is actually very simple.
So, I clicked over to Games and signed up for the first game on the list, which happened to be a beginner game. It seems that the game can be set with a time limit on player turns - each player gets no more than anywhere from 5 minutes to three days to complete their turn. The game I am in right now is set to one day.
][2]Game play is simple, but deep. You have bases that can create units. Units vary in strength, armor, and movement. Terrain ranges from mountains to forests to swamps. There's a lot of room for strategy making.
The final reward for victory is an increase in points to the player's "rating." The rating system awards winners by transferring points from the loser to the winner. You start off with 1500 points. The game I am in is a 3 player map and the third player just gave up, which rewarded me with 10 points. Woo hoo!
There's a neat social aspect to the game as well. There is a chat client as you are playing so you can taunt your opponent or, if you're like me, discuss strategies. There's a forum, blog, and API as well. A special tournament site exists where you can take part in a tournament of WeeWar. Good stuff.
The free account lets you play the game with basic units, terrain, buildings and playable maps. It also only allows you to play up to four games at a time. A pro account can be purchased for a small fee and will grant access to all units, base types, terrains, and maps. A pro account holder can also play up to ten games at a time. There is a difference in map creation as well - a pro account holder can create and store more maps than a free account.
I found out that the game has been around since March of 2007, but it gained a lot of notoriety in early Summer of 2007 after being mentioned on big blogs like Kotaku and Tech Crunch. It's been mentioned in magazines as well. The funny thing is that I never heard of it until I ran my Google search.
The game is fun, the people are actually very friendly, and the site is easy to use. Players offer a very hard challenge, which I enjoy after decades of playing the "computer". If some players don't want to play another human, some users have created their own AI and allow anyone to invite them into a game. Although, it doesn't sound like many of these AIs offer a good challenge.
The game is fun and addicting, it will be my crack for the foreseeable future.