Kohan: Ahriman's Gift

Review by silverthornne

"A very interesting deviation from the RTS norm."

RTS. Real Time Strategy game. Not sure if I've ever been a big fan of this genre because I've found out that even if they are indeed strategic, too many of them usually end up being more about your clicking speed than the strategies you can mount. Of course, there had to be a game to come along that made me change my opinion. And that game is a little known gem from TimeGate Studios named Kohan...

[Note: I have not played Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, though now I plan to get it soon. So this review is coming from the point of view from someone who had not experienced this brilliant system before, and I do realize that this release got criticized for feeling more like an expansion than a full game.]

Graphics: 8.0

They're not 3D, that's the first thing that came to mind. They're also well done. Unfortunately, they're also quite tiny. There's a lot of detail on the individual units and the map, and their animation is very fluid but the game is fixed at a 1024x768 resolution and there is no zooming option, so they look too small to fully appreciate them. The different factions do have quite interesting looking towns, and that is also the norm with the different races that are not tied with the factions. Not to mention all sorts of resource depots in the map, and even if the units are so small, the battles do manage to look pretty exciting. The overall look of the interface and design of the menus is quite pleasing to the eyes, so the small size of the graphics is not bad enough to fully detract this score.

Sound: 7.5

First, the soundtrack. It's pretty indistinct, which can actually be a good thing depending on your tastes. Unfortunately, it's not according to mine. I would like the music to be more felt throughout the game and to leave a stronger impression. The composition is not altogether that bad, but it's just bland. Could have been better, but at least it's not annoying which is definitely a good thing.

The sounds fare much better, thankfully. Battles sound very exciting, with units having distinct aural prompts attached to them when they strike. The shadow beasts grunting and growling, maelstrom engines letting out a deep bass boom when they shoot their mana blasts. Rangers' magical bows sounding similar to laser weapons, the hooves of cavalry sounding as you'd expect them. The game is very good in this category, except for the voice overs. They get very repetitive as you play, and you'll end up just turning them off before you know it. I couldn't really tell if 3D positioning is used though, so if it is, it's not very effective.

User Friendliness: 8.5

Simple, familiar clicking interface. Control panels laid out in an easy to follow way, with only a few setbacks. Those being that it's somewhat tricky to get used to the way panels open and close. For example, it took me a while to figure out that in order to close the panel detailing a unit, you need to click on the unit again as panels lack a close button on them, and with every panel you open you will need to get used to clicking again on the button that opened it in the first place in order to close it. This is somewhat unnatural at first, but not that bad to get used to. The other problem is that starting a custom scenario can take a while as you decide on all the conditions, but this is also a nod off to just how much you can customize a battle. There's not just winning and losing here when you go for a custom scenario, and the game allows so much control that it can be somewhat daunting at first.

Gameplay: 10

Is this game fun? Extremely! Someone at TimeGate decided that most RTS games on the market were too similar, so they took it upon themselves to change the formula, and oh is it a great change. Kohan successfully eliminates most of the micromanagement from the genre while still retaining the right amount of strategy and forethought to keep you interested. This game is not about who can click the fastest or come to the best sudden decision; it's about well planned strategy and execution.

To begin with, even though there are mines you can use for resources, these are not your main sort of income. Towns are, and you need to be upgrading them and adding them different types of buildings to determine your income in the game's resources: gold, mana, iron, wood, and stone. The buildings you place on these towns will also determine what troops you can recruit from it, so even if you know that making forges all the time and then an iron export can be big money, if you do this constantly in your towns you will find that you're possibly neglecting a very useful troop you could have had you decided to also add woodmills or libraries. Another important change is that you don't just build units and command them. You make companies made up of 4 frontline units, 2 support units, and the leader (which can be a generic captain unit depending on the faction of the town that produced them, or a hero you have allocated to it). This allows for great flexibility and some very interesting strategies. Put a necromancer and a high priest in a unit of shadowknights in the frontline with Vashti (a summoner hero) at the helm and you have 2 units summoning extra troups to aid in the battle while the high priest is healing everything. It really makes you think a lot of the makeup of your army; unfortunately the only way to know the details of all units is playing the game itself. The manual just lists the numerical attributes and not the special bonuses they posses. The game is also lacking a sort of readme file with this information, which is a shame. You can also group your companies much as you can do with individual units in other RTS games and assign numbers to a combination of companies. These are called regiments and you can call them up by pressing on the number you assigned to them. You can have different companies within these regiments in different formations and assign them a marching order then hit the lock icon and the whole regiment will move as you ordered it to march. It's quite interesting for the depth of strategy it adds, and you will soon find yourself looking for ways to maximize the effectiveness of both your individual companies and the way you have grouped them to march forward.

Another interesting twist is in the concept of zones. There are supply zones, zones of control, guard zones, zones of population, and zones of detection. A supply zone is the area that a settlement or outpost can keep ''in supply''. Basically, as long as your companies are within supply zones, they are constantly healing and recovering soldiers. If a building is attacked, they cannot provide a supply zone. The zone of control is the area that a regiment happens to cover. It changes depending on the regiment's formation. Should opposing zones of control overlap, a battle ensues. The zone of control is also that area that determines whether a regiment is in supply or under the influence of some of the other zones. Your regiment does not need to be fully inside a zone to benefit or suffer from it; it just needs its zone of control to overlap that other zone. A guard zone is the area that a regiment or building defends. On regiments, this is basically their zone of control, on buildings, it's a small area around them that if an opponent's regiment's zone of control happens to overlap will trigger the building's defensive troops. If your buildings have overlapping guard zones, they will assist each other, so these are important for setting up defenses. The zone of detection is basically the visual range of a regiment or building. The zone of population is the area of the map taken up by a city. Even if a city is in a corner of the map, the extent of the population zone would indicate how much influence that city holds over the natural resources of the area; you cannot build a city over an existing zone of population. Though you can build 2 small cities close together as their population zones are still small; had you waited to build the second city when the first one was already thriving it wouldn't have been possible.

Basically what all these differences mean is that instead of focusing on clicking on this special ability of this unit or other to use at this moment to turn the tide of a battle to survive, instead you plan your strategy and work on it with a more cautious eye. It's not about clicking fast, it's about having the better troop makeups and capitalizing on the use of terrain as well (this is one game in which I've noticed a very strong influence of terrain bonuses, which is a great thing).

Conclusion and Overall rating (not an average): 9

All in all, Kohan: Ahriman's Gift is an amazing title to add to one's collection, even if you are not a fan of RTS titles. It may just make you change your mind about them, as it did to me. I can't wait to see what TimeGate has in store with the true sequel, officially known as Kohan II so far. I was really tempted to rate this game with a perfect 10 as I enjoy it so much, but there are some few details which sadly keep it from reaching that level. But that's not to say it doesn't deserve it. If you still haven't experienced this game, you owe it to yourself to do just that. It doesn't even need a fancy PC to run it, which is always another plus.