I was playing Kohan II online tonight and played in a truly excellent 4v4 game, one of the best online matches I’ve seen in years. The particulars of the game aren’t really important, although I have a game film saved if anyone is interested. It’s pretty epic.
What made it great was a combination of team makeup, teamwork, and the way that all played out in the mechanics of the game. The teams were mostly veterans, players from the very small online Kohan II community who’ve played each other many times. The teams were also well balanced. Most importantly both teams demonstrated very good teamwork, and both put on an impressive display of both offense and defense. In the end, our team won by combining offense and defense better and by cooperating to swap towns and resources to offset the gains and losses. The other side played a pretty amazing game but we won by the skin of our teeth.
One of the interesting factors is that I didn’t fill my usual role of massing a huge force and rolling - I got pinned in on the side of our front that crumpled, and ended up fighting a brutal defensive action for most of the game. My teammate on that side and I thought we were done for 4 or 5 times but we always managed to pull out the bare knuckles defense or the timely retreat. We dug in like pit bulls while our other teammates took the glory but our team won the day. In the end the deciding factor was teamwork.
That’s the kind of thing I play online RTS for. A well balanced, highly challenging game featuring some good teamwork, and a lot of back and forth action.
Sometimes while waiting for a game to fill up or the teams to be balanced it can get annoying, but its the rare “perfect” online game that makes it all worthwhile :0.