Battle Dawn Review, an MMO Wargame via Your Browser

Alliances are Battle Dawn's version of the game guild and members can help one another, sharing resources and defenses, but alliances can also make enemies, putting cost to safety within alliance membership. The game is free to play and turn-based, with games lasting an Age, a preset number of years until game finish. The game ends at the end of an age or at a point in which an alliance controls the ultimate game objects, the relics. Strategy in the game takes place primarily at the alliance level where player made alliance compete for possession of game relics and resource boosting crystals. In the process alliances make and break deals, conquer their neighbors, and at times wage vast wars against one another.

The tactical portion of the game is easy. Players build their cities, and armies, then attack and defend as necessary. But it’s the choices of what to build and when, who to attack with how large an army, and how much to hold back in defense that brings about a complexity to the gameplay. There’s no one skill that wins position and power, it takes a combination of effort on all fronts to survive, much less prosper.

Player cities are visible in two levels of detail. In construction mode they are quite detailed, with additional city development features adding to the cityscapes. However these detailed cities are only visible to the city owners, other players see only a generic city on the world map whose size varies according to city population, though players who donate to the game do have an adjusted city image showing the world at large that they’re a supporter.

Player units are varied, offering 3 versions of 3 basic unit types, infantry, vehicle, and armor, with concussive, beam, and explosive weapons. The units are all vulnerable to a different weapon type, adding to tactical options when developing new units. Player units however are disappointing visually with troops of all types and sizes appearing on the world map as the same generic aircraft, varying by color according to the unit owner’s intent and alliance status to the viewing player. As for special effects the only effects included in the game occur when the player uses an Ion cannon, and is visible only to the player using the item.

Battle Dawn is engaging and the play is smooth with a minimum of time investment required, though like other browser based games, most players tend to put in a bit more than the minimum amount of time. Expect atleast 10 minutes of daily investment just for upkeep, with more time necessary as a player increases their city's involvement in the power struggle within the game. The graphics are a combination of inspired and mediocre. They convey the information well enough at a glance, but some variation in units and cities would definitely improve the game.

Overall Battle Dawn deserves its place as one of the more widely played browser based wargames, and with thousands of players participating each age on multiple worlds, it’s likely to be at the top for awhile yet. To play Battle Dawn you’ll need a web browser equipped with Flash Player 9.0 or higher and an Internet connection.