2404 Review: Armageddon Empires

2404 Writes: "It's difficult to have a truly original idea in anything these days (if it ever was easy, I can't say), and Vic Davis, the creator, programmer, tester, maintainer, and distributor of Armageddon Empires, seems to have realized this. So he's thrown out the idea entirely. Armageddon Empires is a game cobbled together, much like a patchwork rifle built from spare parts scrounged from ransacked hardware stores, from the best parts of a wide variety of genres. And the wonderful thing about it is, Armageddon Empires is unique. It's a totally new creation unlike almost anything else I've ever played despite being made from some of the most recognizable (even tired) tropes of strategy gaming.

AE is set in a nondescript post-apocalyptic wasteland. It's a war game, so it has a hex grid and rules to govern supply and movement. It's a card game, so each player has a deck of cards from which they can draw into their "hand" and from there insert into the game. It's a 4x game too, so it has resources, and the player must constantly expand and conquer new areas of the map to secure resources for himself and prevent his enemy from gathering them. There's also a bit of classic turn-based stack maneuvering involved. The way in which players have to group regular and hero units together and move them around the map reminds me of Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and Magic. This is like Strategy Gaming's greatest hits album, and it's way better than most of their other stuff."