Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War vs Starcraft :: Tacticular Cancer

There's a two year old review of Dawn of War up at IGN. It's called StarCraft vs Dawn of War. It doesn't really reach any conclusion, it justs ask the question. Two years on I think it's time we gave them an answer. Now personally, I'm an avid Starcraft fan but I'd consider myself a casual player and while I'm certainly not the best, I reckon I can play a damn good game. The thing I love most about Starcraft is the enormous variety in strategy that's presented to you. Not just by selecting a different race but even within each race itself. Take the Protoss for example. I can play a purely defensive game by blocking off choke points with a wall of Photon Cannons and massing a bunch of High Templars and casting Psionic Storm whenever a Zerg thinks it's a good idea to attack. With most of his army wiped out, I can then counter with my own small strike force intended to cause as much havoc as I can in his base.

Alternatively, I can play a purely offensive game by foregoing Photon Cannons and building up an army of Zealots and Dragoons. With a few upgrades they become lethal ground attack units. Then again, I might decide to go for an air assault. Build cannons to wall myself in and prevent any early attacks and aim for a fleet of Protoss Carrier's. Devastating air units when used correctly. Each of the three races within Starcraft (Terran, Protoss and Zerg) has these options. Defense, Ground Offense, Air Offense or a mixture of all of the above. Usually I build a wide variety of units as they each have their specific role to play. Sure, your 12 Terran Battlecruisers might look lethal but once I've cast a "freeze spell" on 4 of them, Psi Storm on the rest and wiped up whatever remains with a handful of Dragoons, chances are you're a very worried Terran. Once I've dropped a few Reavers in your base to take out your resource collection units, chances are you're about to be a very dead Terran too.


Introducing the Blood Ravens	Welcome to Dawn of War

Dawn of War on the other hand is a very different game. For starters, unlike in Starcraft, there is no resource gathering. Gone is the "Build 50 Harvesters / Drones / Peons" and "Start gathering Spice / Crystal / Gold". Instead, it's been replaced with Strategic Points. These are positions placed around the map which you capture with your ground units (be they a group of Scouts, a squad of Space Marines or the similar units provided by the other races). Simply send your troops to the position, they erect a flag and after a while, the strategic point will be yours. Once captured, these points start generating resources which you can use to build more troops. Now you either like this or you don't. I don't. For one reason, I've never been a fan of abstract resource collection.

I've always much preferred gathering crystals or other resources with gathering units. For me, it's "more realistic" (which isn't a phrase I really like to use at all, but I will) plus it opens up a wonderful strategy. Sneak through his defenses, take out his resource gathering units and you can cripple your enemy long enough for you to gain the upper hand. A surgical strike with Elite Commando Units (like say, the classic Starcraft Reaver Drop) and it doesn't matter if your strike team is taken out, just so long as they took a bunch of gatherer units with them. The counter strategy is to simply ensure you've got a handful of defensive turrets or units in place to prevent any such attack occurring. Dawn of War doesn't have this method of attack available. Instead, you're capturing these strategic points with your military units which leads me to the second (and in many ways more important) reason as to why I don't like this method of resource collection.


Capturing a Strategic Point	Fighting over a Strategic Point

Let's say your army meets his army and you lose. That's it. You can't capture anymore strategic points until you've rebuilt your units. Now think about that for a moment. While you're rebuilding your units, his units are capturing even more strategic points. Even if you rebuild what units you can (with your dwindling resources now that your enemy is taking all your strategic points) and send them out, you're only going to encounter his units again. Given capturing strategic points gives you resources, that his army has defeated yours previously and that he's now captured more strategic points than you, he quickly gains the upper hand. Your game is over even before you get the chance to counter attack because by the time you do, he's got even more resources, which therefore means he has even more units, which means whatever you've built is going to die and die horribly. So, if you manage to capture and hold on to more strategic points than your opponent, you've generally got the game in the bag long before the final shot is even fired.

The best example of this is with the Orks. The Orks are a fun race who have a habit of putting guns on everything. That is, every building has defensive guns. In an early game, it makes your opponent think twice about attacking you. However, if he's taken out your army in the field, he doesn't need to. All he does is have a few units camp outside your base, to prevent you from sending anything out. Meanwhile, he captures any strategic points you have and then some more. You simply have no way of defending them. He gets more resources while your resources slowly dry up. Whatever plans you had of a great comeback if only you could get that tank out are done and dusted. By the time you have enough resources, he's sending in three tanks to finish you off. What's worse is that Dawn of War has a number of other factors which compound this problem even more.


When Orcs attack.	Orcs: Up close and personal

One of those is that each strategic point you capture gives you an "area of control" and for most races, you can only build within this "area of control". That is, you can't plonk down any old building wherever it suits you. You have to build it within a certain distance of one of these captured points. Again, you either like this or you don't. And guess what? I don't. I don't understand why, as a Space Marine, I'm limited to building within range of a little flag sticking out of a hole in the ground. Surely my engineers are not so incompetent that they can't build an armoury where I want to build it, as opposed to within the small circular radius of a captured point? If I want to damn well build a turret or barracks on the top of a hill, out of the way, then I feel that I should be able to. All of the four races available in Dawn of War (Space Marines, Eldar, Orks and Chaos Space Marines) are stuck with this limitation with the exception of the Eldar, who can build a Webway Gate wherever they like which creates its own area of control around it.

The only similar alternative for the other races is to build a very expensive "Stronghold" (or racial equivalent) which also projects its own control area. Given building a second Stronghold is too expensive when all you want to do is build some barracks a bit further away, it's not really a viable option. Now compare that to Starcraft where each race has it's own different limits. The only race that plays the same is the Protoss who have to build their structures within the area of affect of a Psilon. Terran can build anywhere. Zerg are stuck though as they can only build on the "creep", a living surface organism which extends and grows at a natural rate only from their hatcheries (IE: Stronghold).

For whatever reason I can understand and accept the Starcraft limitations but not those of Dawn of War. I get that Protoss are special and have to build within Psilon's, even though they can build Psilon's anywhere. I get that Zerg have to build on the "creep" that surrounds and steadily grows around their own base (unless they setup a second one), I get that the Terran have the advantage of building everywhere. But I don't get why Space Marines (essentially humans), Orks or Chaos Marines in Dawn of War are stuck building around a little flag poking out of the ground. To me, Starcraft just seems to have a better explanation for the limitation. More to the point though, in Starcraft I can fortify strategic entrance points to my base. For the Zerg, these defenses even expand the reach of their "creep".


An Orc base	A Critical Strategic Point with some artillery

As I said before, you'll either accept this and deal with it or if you're like me, it'll bug the crap out of you. As I also mentioned before, it compounds the problem of losing strategic points. Want to build turrets in that small narrow entrance to your base? Well, you can't. Not unless there's a strategic point there and even if there is, chances are the "area of control" doesn't extend far enough for you to build the turrets where they'd be most effective. As a result, your base ends up poorly defended. (NOTE: This has apparently been corrected in the latest expansion "Dark Crusade", which allows you to build turrets anywhere you like. But not that it matters. You'll understand why when I talk about defenses later).

Buildings and Squads

So, in Dawn of War you're essentially stuck building within a small circular region around a captured point. To its benefit though, you don't need to build that many buildings. In a game of Starcraft, you might build 12 Barracks, 6 Factories and then cram whatever room you have left up with Supply Depots, not forgetting the research buildings of which you have two or three of each. In Dawn of War, 6 Factories would be excessive. 12 Barracks would be suicidal. You can actually get by in most games with just one of each. Yes, that's right, one of each. Generally for long multiplayer games you'll build one or two more, hell you might even get four of each in a very long game but that would be the extreme upper limit. How effective can one barracks be though? Well, 12 Starcraft Barracks equals 12 Marines which you can pop out reasonably rapidly. It's not long and you've got a small force.

In Dawn of War, 1 Barracks equals 1 Marine Squad. Notice that word? Squad. To counter the lack of units, your barracks simply produces more in the form of a Squad. Each Marine Squad (or racial equivalent as all races work with squads) when produced contains 4 individual men but they all move and act as a single unit. You can then start "re-inforcing" that squad with another 4 men, a squad leader and then you can even attach additional special units for a total of 10 units in a squad. What's key about that is these squads build the reinforcements themselves. Think about it, 2 Marine Squads is really 2 mobile Marine factories. Even better, they can reinforce themselves out in the field. Forget about having to constantly re-build Marines back at base and then send them half-way over the map to join the fighting, by which time you've lost another handful. Your Marine Squads in Dawn of War are re-inforcing themselves on the field, during a fight.


Losing to overwhelming numbers.	When Chaos attacks.

As cool as that is though (and it is one of the cooler and unique aspects of the game), there is a marked downside. Again, comparing to Starcraft, if your Starcraft army is out in the field and it loses, chances are you've got a bunch of units back at base which you've built. Anything that's left of your opponents army is going to head down your way, encounter your reinforcements and your defenses back at base and more than likely be cleaned up or at least face another tough battle before they wipe you out completely. In Dawn of War, if you lose 4 entire Squads of Marines, that's 4 Marine factories you've lost. By the time the enemy gets to your base, he will have almost completely reinforced his remaining squads, combined them with any additional squads he's built and then encounter a pitiful one or two half reinforced squads at your base which is all you've managed to pump out in that time. In short, you've already lost. You don't get a second chance because your freshly recruited Marines don't stand a chance against his superior numbers.

Which brings me to another criticism I have about Dawn of War. If you've let your opponent get more units than you, you're dead. Superior numbers always win and don't get me wrong, so they should. The problem is they have a habit of winning spectacularly. Again, because Squads can reinforce themselves, unless you take out a complete Squad, any attack you make is going to be pretty much ineffective. Now these squads are controlled by a "personnel limit". All the races have a maximum limit on the number of personnel and vehicles they can build. In Starcraft, each race was limited to 200 units and some units took up more "personnel" than others. A Carrier for example takes up 8. It's an effective way of limiting the number of units (and therefore required processing power).

What's probably the most glaring fault in the game however, is how this is all balanced. Which is to say, it's not. For example, let's compare the Space Marines to Chaos. They're similar races on the whole but look what happens when we compare their basic units. Chaos Space Marines and Space Marine Space Marines (that's a mouthful) do about the same amount of damage and have the same amount of hit points. The maximum personnel limit each race can get is 20 and each squad of Space Marines takes up 2. That means both Space Marines and Chaos can build 10 squads of Space Marines. You might think that's a fairly even match up. That is, until you look at the number of men you're allowed to get per squad. Chaos can have 10 men per squad while Space Marines can only have 8 men per squad. For a full 10 squads Chaos will be sporting 100 men while Space Marines are only going to have 80. Normally, that would be balanced out by making Chaos' units weaker. Unfortunately, It's not. A squad of Space Marines for both races cause about the same amount of damage and have the same amount of hit points. So for sheer firepower, Chaos out-mans you by 25%.


At least the explosions are satisfying.	Your work here is done.

Once again though, as with strategic points, there's another factor which compounds this and makes it even worse. That is, construction units. Each race has a worker unit who's responsible for constructing the buildings for that race. For the Space Marines, it's called a Servitor and he takes up one personnel unit. Generally you're going to have about 4 of these Servitor's running around. That's the equivalent of 2 full squads of men. So instead of 10 squads and 80 men, you're only going to have 8 squads for a total of 64 men. Here's the kicker. The worker unit for Chaos doesn't take up any personnel units. Now, Chaos are limited in that they can only build a maximum of 5 of these units but given that's the most you're ever going to need anyway, it's not really a restriction.

If you haven't figured it out yet, that means Chaos can have 5 workers and still have 10 full squads of men for a total of 100 men. So not only does Chaos out-man you anyway, he now out-mans you by almost 2 to 1. Given superior numbers are always going to cut your men down before they get a chance to take out any enemy squads, you have no real option other than to run away back to base. Now at this point, you might think your men will be safe behind the heavily fortified turrets and listening posts. At least safe enough that they can hold off the attack, give you a chance to rebuild and even get back in the fight. Just so long as he doesn't have any big artillery pieces, you'll be fine. Right? Wrong...

Defend Thy Self

Most of the races have wonderful artillery units in Dawn of War. Absolutely wonderful. You don't really need long-range artillery though. Your massed units are just as capable of taking out a heavily fortified position as a tank or two is. Even a horde of turrets is going to be cut-down fairly quickly by a basic Squad of units. While in Starcraft defensive turrets can hold their own and then-some - making for some great long-term play and strategy on how to get around them - in Dawn of War, turrets are useless for anything other than tipping the balance. That is, if 50 of his units meet 50 of your units but you have a few turrets nearby helping out, chances are you'll win. It won't be a spectacular win mind you but it'll be a win none-the-less. But if 100 of his units encounter 50 of your units (IE: Chaos attack you) and you have some turrets nearby, you're a dead man.


Turrets? I laugh at turrets. And so will you.	No more turrets...

He doesn't need to manoeuvre long-range artillery pieces into position to take out your defenses, keeping his forces nearby in the event you send out units to try and stop him. He doesn't even really need to worry about your turrets at all. A basic squad has no trouble cutting them down in all of about 2 seconds (literally). Given he'll be attacking with all of his units, any turrets you have don't stand a chance. Even if you have lots of turrets, he's re-inforcing his squads as he targets each turret individually and takes them out. Your turrets are spreading their fire over an entire squad or three and while you might even wipe out a fifth of his army (given enough turrets), it won't matter. This is because turrets are highly unlikely to completely destroy a squad and those squads are being reinforced as each unit dies. Again, turrets simply don't stand a chance and once they're gone, his reinforced squads aren't going to take long to cut-down whatever you have left.

As a further example, there's a Listening Post defensive structure which can be built on top of your captured strategic points. Now the reason you're building it isn't really to help defend your captured position. It's because an upgraded Listening Post gathers more resources than a non-upgraded one. Now the most basic unit in the game is a Scout (or racial equivalent). This is a small squad of units (maximum 4 men) which is used to capture strategic points especially early on in the game. A Listening Post will hold up against a group of Scouts... but not by much. Remember how squads are being reinforced? Well, one squad of upgraded Scouts, constantly being reinforced can take down a level 1 upgraded Listening Post without losing anything more than one man at a time. By the time a man is killed, he's been replaced by a reinforcement who keeps firing.

Occasionally you will lose two men but you only need to pull back for a minute, wait until both have been reinforced and then go back at it. While it does take quite a long time for the Scouts to claim victory (time in which you're ideally sending in your own Scouts to even the balance), it serves as a demonstration as to just how ineffective defensive buildings are. Clearly all you need are some more Scouts and then you don't have much of a problem on your hands. By comparison though, a squad of Marines won't even give your upgraded Listening Post a second thought as they tear through it in less than 10 seconds. In effect, a listening post doesn't serve any purpose in making your opponent think twice before attacking it. Considering he's also likely to be attacking with a lot more than one squad of Scouts and you might begin to understand how little a defensive structure means.

... no more player.

In Starcraft however, if I "turtle" and build up a wall of defenses, you're going to have a hard time taking me out unless you employ some proper strategy. You can't just send in whatever units you have thinking my defenses won't do that much damage to you. Oh no. Do that and you'll lose most, if not all, of your army. You need to think about it. That is, you're much better off attacking with long-range units like Siege Tanks in Siege mode or Zerg Guardians attacking and destroying my defenses as you work your way steadily into my base. If you're a Zerg, you might even send in one of those tough as nuts Ultralisks. Alternatively, you're scouting out a weak spot and hitting me hard there in the hopes of breaking through and getting into my base.

In Dawn of War, that strategy is completely missing. Bases are wide open for attack even if they have a wall of turrets. It doesn't matter how many defenses you build, your opponent is going to cut through them like a hot knife through butter. So unless you have your entire army at home defending your base, you're a dead man. Also keep in mind that spending resources on building defenses means you have less resources to produce units. Dawn of War is a very unit driven game because as I mentioned before, he who has more units, wins.

Again, this is something I just don't plain like. It's my personal preference. I like thinking up ways to get around someone's defenses. I like having defenses that are effective at holding off an enemy unless he uses the proper artillery units to attack. I absolutely adore games like Age of Empires II where walls provide a formidable defense that requires some thought and strategy to get around. I especially love playing against the computer AI as I sit back and laugh as it tries to break-through my replica of the Great Wall of China with a bunch of swordsmen. I loathe games like Warcraft II where walls are nothing more than some kind of sick joke (where people would build farms around their base instead as they provided more protection). Once again, this is either something you'll accept and tolerate or something you won't and if you don't like it, you'll like Dawn of War just that little bit less.

Our Gods are With Us

Another thing you'll find in Dawn of War are a range of "hero" units. That is, units who are quite powerful. Overwhelmingly powerful in fact. And by now you're probably guessing where I stand on that one too. Right at the start of the game, each race can build a unit called a Force Commander. This little guy is tough as nuts. So tough that if you don't build him while your opponent does, you've already lost the game. He's pretty much mandatory. To find out just how tough he was, I played a bunch of skirmishes (against the PC) where I refused to build a Force Commander. Instead, I'd build an additional squad of Marines (for less than the same price) working under the theory that more units = win. Well, in every case, my units lost. Unless I had a Force Commander as well and then sent both Force Commander's to duke it out, it didn't matter how many units I had. He'd just keep coming and crush me.


Predator tanks about to kick some arse.	An Orc Squiggoth on a rampage.

By the same token, if I had a Force Commander and I managed to take his Force Commander out first (by setting every unit I had to attack his Commander), I'd instantly win the game at that point. Not because a "Game Over" screen appeared when the enemy Force Commander died (it doesn't) but because the Force Commander is so powerful that the minute your opponent loses his, he's open for attack. In fact the minute your opponent loses any battle, he's wide-open for attack. During the later stages of the game this is true for other units as well. For example vehicles. I found that if I focussed on Space Marines while the PC went ahead and got vehicles, it was game over. One vehicle is going to tear you upside down like a bitch.

Now in some respects, that's exactly what should happen so this is something they've gotten right. Marines after-all are just grunts and a vehicle has armour. So to the game's credit, you actually do need to develop proper counters such as getting rocket launchers for your men or getting your own vehicle. Unfortunately, if he gets a vehicle first and you (for whatever reason) have neglected it, you're toast. It's also a pity that turrets don't have the same whatever armour it is the vehicles do. It seems building a fantastically lethal mobile vehicle with multiple mounted rocket launchers is a no brainer but a properly armoured stationary turret is out of the question.

The problem this leads to is the game then revolves around building the most awesome unit you have available, building as many of them as you can afford and winning. An element which best demonstrates this is the fact that you have a vehicle and people cap. As I mentioned before, this is the limit on the number of people or vehicles you can build. Like in Starcraft you could only build 200 units and some units would take up more "population" than others, Dawn of War has a similar concept. What this leads to though, is focusing entirely on the best unit you can build at the time. Unlike in Starcraft where even basic Marines and Siege Tanks serve a purpose and anyone who builds only one type of unit is a dead man, Dawn of War is all about losing the useless squads and replacing them with the better ones you can get. Why build Scouts when you can get Space Marines? And why get Space Marines when you can get Terminators? Okay, so Terminators suck because they lose morale far too quickly but why build Whirlwind's when you can have Predator's? To me, it doesn't make sense.


Building a Squiggoth.	Land Raider versus Squiggoth

Each unit is supposed to have its own unique role. There's a reason I build Dark Templars in Starcraft. They're weak but powerful and they can attack while cloaked. In small groups they make a fantastic hit squad but they're easily taken out if the enemy has observer units. There's a reason I build Zealots. If you've got just a handful of Wraiths, you can harass my Zealots without worry as my Zealots can't attack air units but my Zealots are going to be very effective against that line of Siege Tanks. If I want to attack your Wraiths, I build Dragoons and if you're Wraiths are cloaked, I need an observer unit. Each unit has a pro and con and a reason to build it.

In Dawn of War, those roles simply don't appear to be present. You're either building Dreadnoughts and walking all over your enemy or you're building Predator tanks and walking all over your enemy. You don't really need to build both. In fact if you have both, it's either because your Dreadnoughts are left over from before you could get Predator tanks (which are faster, more powerful, cost only a little bit more and tear through Dreadnoughts like paper) or it's because you've run out of resources and need something desperately. If you're really that desperate though, it probably means you're about to lose.

Now while it's true that you can upgrade units with certain weapons to be more effective against vehicles versus infantry or infantry versus vehicles, none of the upgrades appear to have anything more than a marginal affect. Like turrets, they *just* help you win by a little bit but if he has more units than you, don't even bother. Okay, okay, while the game's maybe not quite as bad as I might make out, the unit balance is atrocious. You're either walking all over your enemy without a care in the world or he's walking all over you. There is no inbetween. There are no close battles which you recover from to then push the enemy back and claim glorious victory. If you lose the first battle, you've lost the war. That's it. Game over.

Relic, the creators of Dawn of War, are aware of this though. Unfortunately, instead of addressing it by seriously giving every unit a much needed revamp and defining specific roles for them (IE: Making defenses worthwhile so that people use artillery or even finding a use for that Rhino transporter), they've just upped the unit population cost for some units. So instead of getting 6 Predator's, you can only get 4. That's okay though because bases are so poorly defended that you only needed 4 Predator's anyway. Again, why build artillery when your Predator's are going to lay to waste all before them, even those pesky upgraded turrets?

The Hun in the Sun

Now a moment ago, I mentioned Wraiths. That's a type of unit missing from Dawn of War. Remember what I said earlier about Protoss Carrier's being an effective air unit? Well, don't worry about that because in Dawn of War, there are no air units. None what-so-ever. So while in Starcraft I'm deciding whether I want to go for an all-out ground assault, build a mixed team of specialist units, get some heavy defenses or head straight for an air attack, in Dawn of War you go for a ground offensive because you simply have no other alternative. Your only real decision is whether you want to rush or not. What's especially frustrating about that though is that most of the races have air units dropping things off left right and center.

As a Space Marine for example (the race I play the most because I love it), when you build tanks, a big beautiful ship flies down, lands on top of your machine-cult (IE: Factory) and offloads what I presume to be parts which are manufactured into your lovely new Predator tank. When you place a new Stronghold, you don't build it from the ground up. Once again a beautiful spaceship comes down except this time, it drops off your new building right where you want it. Yet despite that ship being there, you can't do anything with it. It's just a nice animation which happens from time to time. A whole playing field of what would make for some awesome strategy is quite simply not there. It's missing. Once again, you either accept this limitation, deal with it and move on or you cry yourself to sleep at night like a little school-girl imaging how awesome Battlecruisers would've looked in Dawn of War's rich 3d environment... If only they'd implemented them.


Spaceships do exist in Dawn of War, you just can't use them.

They're only a fancy construction animation.

So what's left to like about Dawn of War? Well, quite a lot, actually. Even though it lacks air units, what they have implemented is a range of quite interesting and very cool looking ground units and vehicles for each race. So while strategies like Reaver Drops, air assaults, Siege Tanks and so on are out, there is at least a mild variation in the races so that they do play differently. Each race also has its strengths and weaknesses. Mind you some races seem to have more strengths than weaknesses and others more weaknesses than strengths but at least they play some-what differently. The other thing you need to know is that each unit is awesome. Graphically, visually and theatrically the game is a world apart from Starcraft. While I've always liked Starcraft, Dawn of War is the "next generation" with fully 3d units and environments which you can have fun zooming in on and looking around. The voice acting is also excellent. In fact, it's absolutely superb.

This game has been given a lot of polish in the visual and audio sense. There's a feel about it which hits you and makes you want to like the game despite everything else. Explosions look and feel like explosions. Getting inside your enemy's base while he's not looking and taking out his buildings gives a plethora of wonderful bangs well worth the buck. And as much as I hate the God-like units, they are fearsome in battle and they look and act every bit the part. The first time you see an Orkish Squiggoth for example. Those are moments you don't forget. Not when it takes the combined effort of your entire force to bring that sucker down. Even little things like customising the paint job on your units are a nice touch. Oh and saving replays of your matches. Being able to re-live a glorious victory from your opponents side and see all the chat messages he sent is a great touch. Especially heart-warming when "I think we're going to win this one!" was the last message he sent to his allies right before you creamed him.


Reading your oponent's recorded Multiplayer messages. Good for a laugh.

Somewhere in all of this is a single player campaign too. That's not too bad but it terms of strategy? Forget about it. Build units. Win. Move on. The only reason you're playing the campaign is because of the story, which is a little lacking but overall not too bad. It's certainly not at the Starcraft level and the lack of challenge really begins to grate on you after a while but it's worth at least one play-through. As someone who's not familiar with the Warhammer setting, it would've been nice to have a few things explained too. It took me a while to figure out that the Librarian in the main campaign wasn't there because of some overdue books the Commander had neglected to return (HAHAH LOL SEE I MAKE FUNNY! I kill myself sometimes. No really, I do). Bad jokes aside, if you don't know what Warhammer is, your best bet is to hit Wikipedia and read up all about it. The game (including the brief two pages in the manual about Warhammer) doesn't really give you anything other than a vague idea of "Marines in Space".

Beyond that, the single player experience is really in the Skirmishes against the computer. They can be fun but as you can probably already figure out by now, once you know the tricks of the trade, walking all over the AI isn't too difficult. Depending of course, on what skill level you play at. There's no real challenge there beyond being a time killer for a few minutes unless you bump it up to Insane difficulty, where the AI seems to then cheat. That said, it's not a bad time killer and there is some fun in holding the PC down, building artillery and just bombarding him for laughs. The real strength of Dawn of War though comes in the online play which is about the only place you're going to see the little real diverse strategy there is in the game.


Joining a Multiplayer game.	Winning. Glorious.

And like all online play you'll win some, you'll lose some, you'll get your arse kicked or you'll take out that newb with a sense of satisfaction knowing that you may have actually learnt something. As much as I might say the races or units are unbalanced, when you're online, it all depends on whom you're playing against and if this is the first time your opponent has actually played Chaos, you might even stand a chance. Humans make mistakes, learn from them and aren't afraid to try out something new. All reasons why they make such great opponents. In some respects, the online play is a little more satisfactory for beginners too. Starcraft's multiplayer has been over-run by Koreans so you either can't understand what game you're joining (because all you see is a funny character set) or you're getting your arse handed to you by people who've played over 1,000 games. For me, that's not so much a problem but for someone who's not that good at RTS's, it'll make you reconsider.

By this stage, you pretty much know how I feel about Dawn of War. I really wanted a game that would replace Starcraft as the perfectly balanced RTS that'd become part of my staple gaming diet. The game where I'd collect a bunch of replays of me single handedly (because my ally got killed. My ally always seems to get killed) taking on two decent players with just a dozen High Templars, taking out their Carrier attack, Reaver dropping their base and following up with an organised ground assault. Games where I'd be losing, then I'd be winning, then I'd be losing again, before coming back with what looked like a winning move before finally losing. Dawn of War isn't that game but it does have its moments. The feel of the game is certainly worth experiencing.

Keep in mind too that this is just vanilla Dawn of War that I'm talking about here. I'm yet to try the expansion packs as I have a habit of thoroughly exhausting the original before I move on. Given I only bought the original a month or so ago, that'll be a while yet. Both the Winter Assault and Dark Crusade expansions add new units and entire new races which in and of themselves look like they're going to be fun to play. Dark Crusade even adds what looks like an interesting single player campaign. Sure there might still be some serious balance issues but on the whole, it won't take long to learn the tricks of the trade for each race and figure out when to strike.

Is it any good?

So IGN, it's time someone gave you an answer. Sorry but in my opinion, Starcraft wins. Dawn of War is certainly a well-rounded package but it lacks the huge variety of strategy and the finesse that Starcraft provides along with the almost perfect balance of each race and unit. Both games have atmosphere, only one is masterfully balanced. Given there are caps for both personnel and vehicles and it lacks air units, you don't get to try anything remotely like the 12 Battlecruisers that so many Terran players in Starcraft seem to love or even the "Nothin' but Dragoons" that a few Protoss players try. Your army will always consist of the maximum amount of troops you can build and the maximum amount of vehicles.


All his units versus all of yours.

... and so will your enemy's. Winning then comes down to whomever takes out the other's vehicles (or advanced personnel units, as the case may be) first. Once that's done, you can walk all over his base. There's no final line of Siege Tanks to get past. No daunting array of Photon Cannons. Just hit his base and you're home free. And while there are units similar to Starcraft's Protoss High Templar, you can't get them in anywhere near the same numbers or effect. There are also no neat little tricks like mind-controlling an enemy SCV and building up a second army. Nothing where you get to sit back and laugh as your opponents pathetic attack bounces off your perfectly placed defenses. In some respects, part of that is because of what the Warhammer licence is. In others, it's because Relic didn't implement any number of units which were seemingly available to them.

But is Dawn of War worth buying? Well, if you're a player who enjoys playing a very defensive game, it's probably not for you. Dawn of War is very combat oriented. Given how you gather resources, you can probably already imagine the skirmishes you're likely to encounter right from the start. Depending on who or what you're playing, sometimes those skirmishes don't stop until it's all over. Sometimes if you lose those skirmishes, the game already is over. Likewise, if you're not a fan of holding control points to get resources, that'll be another black mark in your book. You either like that or you don't and I've never been a fan of that method of resource collection. On the other hand, if you're a Warhammer fan, buy it. The Warhammer atmosphere is there in spades and you're going to love it to bits. Chances are you already do and are about to post a steaming line by line reply as to why I've got it all so horribly wrong.

Single player still has some bugs.

If you're like me though and you think Starcraft is the most totally awesomest RTS ever, chances are you won't like Dawn of War all that much. You might enjoy it but I'll be honest, I don't really like Dawn of War. I wanted a better Starcraft. Given Starcraft is 8 years old, I figured a 2 year old game would be better. For me, it wasn't. Will you like it? Well, hopefully I've given you enough of an outline for you to make up your own mind. If you're still unsure, download the demo and give it a good whirl. What you see is what you get. If you enjoy the demo so much that you can't wait to play a bunch of games online, go right ahead and pick it up. If you enjoyed it but you're still not too sure, wait a bit. "Dawn of War Anthology" is already out which contains the original Game of the Year Edition version of Dawn of War plus both expansions for the price of a new game. You'll either want that or you'll pick that up in a few months once it's dropped in price a bit. It'll be worth the buy then because it's not actually that bad a game. It's just not the best RTS ever, which is a damn shame because if Relic had given it enough attention, it could've kicked Starcraft to the curb once and for all. Then again, maybe Relic will come up with that one patch that truly makes Dawn of War worth the play...

The only question is, will Relic ever learn how to properly balance a real-time strategy game?

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