The Battle of Polytopia (for iPhone) Review
PROS
- Bright and distinctive style.
- Fast, fun play.
- Strategically challenging.
- Local multiplayer.
CONS
- Occasionally repetitive.
- Simplistic tech tree.
- No online multiplayer.
- No undo option.
When you're done crushing candy and your nekos are sound asleep, you might feel the urge to crush the world under your boot heel and take over as its sole ruler. If that's the case, I'd suggest going to see a therapist and playing The Battle of Polytopia while you wait. This cute iPhone game is a simple but still challenging take on classic strategy games like StarCraft II and Civilization. What it lacks in terms of deep, wide-ranging gameplay and multiplayer modes, it makes up for with pure, addicting fun.
With a title like "The Battle of Polytopia," you might think this is a sad story about how a polyamorous utopian community was torn apart. Instead, it is a war between many places, which is why it is called Polytopia. The game is free, but there are a few in-app purchases that aren't necessary. I spent a lot of time testing the Battle of Polytopia on an iPhone 6 ($659, 64GB, Silver at Groupon). By "test," I mean I played games that were so fun that a quick trip to the bathroom turned into a 45-minute mission to take over the world.
The price is low compared to other strategy and board games for the iPhone. The price of Civilization Revolution 2 is $2.99, for example. Board game adaptations like Elder Sign: Omens ($0.99 at Apple.com) or Carcassonne ($9.99 at Apple.com) tend to cost even more.
Polytopia looks different from other iPhone games, even ones in the same genre. I've played the official mobile versions of Civilization and was surprised by how slow and sloppy they look on a small screen. Polytopia's graphics are more like those of Crossy Road, which has a retro look. It has bright colors, like pinks and greens that glow. It's not as much of an interactive work of art as Monument Valley ($3.99 at Apple.com), but it's still pretty cool. The first thing that made me want to play Polytopia was the retro-styled graphics. I especially like the isometric view, which shows how the world of Polytopia looks when cut in half.
Getting Started
There are two ways to play The Battle of Polytopia. In Perfection mode, you have 30 turns to beat your enemies and get the highest score you can. In Domination mode, you can take as many turns as you want, and the game ends when you beat everyone else. Speaking of opponents, you can play against up to nine, but the default is up to four. The total depends on how many Tribes you've bought in addition to the basic set. We'll talk more about this below. The level of difficulty goes from easy to insane. A typical game lasts between 15 and 30 minutes.
Each map is made up of 256 tiles that are chosen at random. This keeps the game challenging and can force you to try new things. From deep water to high mountains, forests, deserts, and fields are shown on the tiles. The landscapes are blocky, like those in Minecraft ($26.95 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window), but seen from a distance. Even small things like the cube-shaped trees and whales are important. For example, if you get stuck on an island, your first goal should be to learn how to sail. The way the game is set up keeps maps small, so you'll run into enemies in just a few turns.
You can play with a friend by taking turns with the same phone, but you won't be able to play against people on the Web. I'm not too upset that I can't play with other people online, though. It's not easy to keep such a system running, and some games, like San Juan ($3.99 at Apple.com), aren't popular enough to make online play worthwhile. But Polytopia will leave you cold when it comes to friends far away. I guess you can always look at where people stand on the leaderboard.
You can play as one of four tribes that are loosely based on real groups: the Asian-inspired Xin-xi, the Roman-inspired Imperius, the Norse-inspired Bardur, or the Middle Eastern and North African-inspired Oumaji. There are also six other options that can be bought for 99 cents each. These add fantasy and South American-style tribes that can be played.
Each tribe's fighting units and buildings look different, giving each one a unique feel. Each tribe also comes from its own biome, like the Bardur, who live in the frozen tundra, or the Vengir, who live in the dead, blackened wastelands. But even though they look different, all of the tribes have access to the same units and technologies. For example, the Imperius tribe rides horses and the Bardur tribe rides bears. The only difference between tribes in terms of how they work is that each starts with a different technology. For example, the Oumaji start with Riding and one Rider unit. On the other hand, the Xin-xi have the Climbing technology, which makes it easy for them to move through mountain ranges.
Playing Poly
Fans of the long-running PC strategy game series Civilization will feel right at home in the Battle of Polytopia. You start with just one village, and white clouds block your view of the rest of the world. You have resources, which are shown as stars at the top of the screen, and one low-level unit to start your conquest with. Resources can be used to buy more units or make improvements. In a twist on the typical strategy game, you also have to spend money to gather materials from the environment. These materials help you improve your town and support a larger number of military units.
The most important part of the game is how you use your limited resources. You have to decide how much to spend on new technologies and improvements to your city versus how much it will cost to make units that will help you conquer new lands or defend the ones you already have. The game is hard because (up to a certain point) the cost of technologies goes up with each turn. This means you can't just race up the tech tree and beat your enemies with super-advanced units.
You also can't build new cities wherever you want, which is different from most strategy games. Only certain villages that are spread out across the map can be taken under your care and built up over time. Villages give more points and units, which makes the housing market very competitive. Also, there are no civilian units in the game. You have to make changes to the town or the area around it, like turning empty fields into farms that support the population or building roads.
Civilization has always had more than one way to win, and not all of them involve war. Polytopia also works hard to make conquest just one part of the game and not the only one. You can do things like explore every tile on the map or make trade routes between five cities. By doing this, you can build special buildings that help nearby cities and earn more points. But none of these guarantees victory, and the game's AI, which is too simple, often attacks without reason. Without a way to negotiate, war is inevitable, which can be frustrating and keep happening over and over again. Especially since AI aggression is the main thing that stops nonmilitary goals from being reached.
In Polytopia, you will definitely go to war, but because of the way points work, conquest can only get you so far. At the end of the game, your points are added up and compared to the scores of other Polytopia players on a leaderboard for each tribe. Points can be earned in a lot of different ways, even just by exploring new parts of the map. That means you can kill the other tribes in a brutal way and still get a bad score. It's an interesting twist that keeps the game from becoming a boring fight between the same people over and over again.
Assume the Position
And since we're talking about fights, Polytopia has a surprising amount of strategy for such a simple game. Each tribe has access to the same units, and their stats are the same as well, with a few exceptions. More to come on this. Regardless of your tribe, Warriors always start with the same amount of health, and Archers always do the same amount of damage. Also, keep in mind that battles aren't a feast for the eyes because they use very little animation to show the action.
In fact, fighting in Polytopia feels more like fighting in a board game than in a typical PC strategy game. Often, the mix of units is not as important as where they are placed and in what order they go into battle. Units can't occupy the same space, and once they move, they can't move again. Also, when they are attacked, they automatically attack back. For example, it is often a good idea to send low-health units into a counterattack to die so that new troops can move in. When I started playing Polytopia, I didn't expect this, but as a board game nerd, I love it.
The rule that all units are the same is broken in a few places. Riding units, for example, get a second turn to move after they attack. This lets them attack and then run away from the enemy's attack on their turn. Archers and units in boats can attack from afar, avoiding attacks in return and shooting over friendly units that might get in their way.
One problem with Polytopia is that it seems to have forgotten some basic things in its attempt to be simple. You won't find an Undo button, for example, so make sure that every tap on the screen is something you really want to do. I've let conquerors take over cities and started wars I couldn't finish with the slip of a finger.
The Whole World in Your Hand
The Battle of Polytopia works because it's easy to understand. It looks clean and doesn't have a lot of stuff on it, and it's easy to pick up. Taking a few turns while waiting for a train can quickly lead to taking over the whole world. Polytopia has few ways to play with other people, focuses a lot on combat, and has a simple AI that can make it feel a bit repetitive. Still, the game is fun because it gives you a good mix of gratification and strategy. You will love it if you want to destroy your enemies from your iPhone. Monument Valley, an Appstoreview Editors' Choice iPhone game, is a great choice if you want a more puzzle-based game with a healthy dose of art.
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