Epicinium

Overview

Epicinium is an indie strategy game inspired by Advance Wars with an environmental twist; combat can destroy the forests that cities rely on to grow and global warming leads to extreme temperatures that prevent crops from growing. Players can use the destructive abilities of their units to overwhelm opponents and cripple economies, or try a more subtle approach in order to preserve the region that they are capturing. At the end of the game, the winner is scored for the number of grass and forest tiles still left on the map.

Gameplay

Each round, players simultaneously give up to five orders to their units and buildings in the planning phase. In the action phase, these orders are played out; first an order of player 1, then an order of player 2, etcetera, until there are no more orders to execute. Units might miss because their target has moved away, or die before they even get to execute their order. Therefore, anticipating your opponent's orders is key to winning small skirmishes.

Between rounds, either a weather phase takes place in which the season changes and temperatures rise of fall, or a night phase takes place. At night, cities and other structure tiles gain power and generate income, provided that their surroundings still support their growth. Cities and towns require grass, water or crops to grow, so a town surrounded by dirt and rubble is useless.

Over time, global warming increases the fluctuations in temperature that occur when seasons change. Extreme temperatures and extreme drought can prevent crops from growing, cause units to be more vulnerable to damage, or even outright destroy entire cities. Building industry accelerates this process but also unlocks powerful units that might help win the game before the destruction gets out of hand.