14 DAY TRIAL // 
French developer Cyanide Studios has already established a name for itself in the strategy/role playing game arena, with some interesting games such as Aarklash: Legacy, Confrontation, Of Orcs And Men and two Games of Thrones titles.
Now, they bring an online strategy game based in the same universe as Confrontation and Aarklash: Legacy, Dogs of War Online.
Dogs of War Online is a free-to-play fantasy multiplayer turn-based strategy game from Cyanide Studios, based on an extension of the Confrontation miniature wargaming system.
The game is set in the same world of Aarklash as Aarklash: Legacy, another game based on the Confrontation universe made by French developer Cyanide Studios.
The world is torn apart by a war between the forces of Light, Darkness and Destiny, and companies enlisted in these three alliances roam free throughout the land in search of glory.
The forces of light are human soldiers and mages, coming together under the banner of the Lion, darkness is represented by the undead and unholy rallied under the banner of the Ram, and the armies of destiny are the inhabitants of Aarklash that revere the powers of nature and don't share the black-or-white worldview of the other two factions, the Wolfen that allied under the sign of the Wolf.
Players will take the lead of one such mercenary band, doing their best to manage their group in their quest for riches and greatness.
The game is based around a system of Army Points, and players can mix and match various units within a certain point cap and then proceed to fight turn-based skirmishes against other players or the AI, in the usual miniature wargaming manner.
Each unit has a certain cost and can be upgraded once it gains enough experience, each new ability increasing its points price. There are melee fighters, ranged attackers and spell slingers on each side, and all three factions are very different from each other.
All the units in an alliance follow the same design principles, and the units themselves are varied enough to provide a wide array of choices regarding field tactics.
The game's main gameplay component is dueling with other players' companies in order to gain fame and wealth, but there are also several other options available.
Players can also send their individual units on missions, from pickpocketing and intimidation to kidnapping and public displays of power, each mission preventing that unit from being used in battle for a set amount of time.
Missions usually come at a low initial investment and offer greatly superior rewards, but your henchmen can also fail them, risking being wounded or even killed. Evidently, the more skilled a unit, the greater the chances of success.
Players can initially recruit units from the game store, and as time progresses and their fame grows, they will even be able to construct facilities that automatically recruit units each day.
The bread and butter of the game is the great tactical turn-based skirmish system, a system that provides both difficult choices as well as greatly rewarding outcomes, when your maneuvers secure victory.
Battles take place on a hex grid map, and players will quickly learn how to make use of obstacles that offer cover, hard-to-pass hexes and chokepoints, in order to get the most out of their units. Rushing blindly into battle can only lead to defeat, as patience, careful planning and an in-depth knowledge of the units' strengths and weaknesses will prove instrumental to success.
Each unit has a few base stats that combat is based around, such as dodge, accuracy, damage and toughness, all used for formulas to determine the chance to hit, the actual damage inflicted, strikes of opportunity and other battle mechanics.
The strategic depth is very rewarding, as almost every unit has a few special abilities, such as a terrifying presence that strikes fear into an enemy when first engaging and thus lowers its stats until the next turn, or the ability to strike twice when attacking due to being naturally ferocious.
Apart from the units' special abilities, there are also a limited number of additional tactical orders that can greatly assist in the heat of battle, such as a defensive posture that forgoes attacking in order to increase defense stats or a more aggressive stance that will yield an extra attack at the cost of defenses for the remainder of the turn.
Furthermore, as units get damaged they grow weaker, and using effects such as fear and stun and softening enemies with more resilient units before coming in for the kill with more frail ones will prove very useful indeed.
Another feature of the battle field is that a unit that delivers a killing blow will get an additional action, able to deliver an additional attack to a close-by enemy or close in on a prospective target, so carefully selecting who get the pursuit bonus adds another level of depth.
As players gain experience, additional units will gradually become available, and the ones in their companies will grow, allowing a choice of upgrades at each level that will further personalize the tactical segment of the game.
The freedom this affords is great, as once players reach higher levels, they are able to fully customize an army to fit below a certain Army Points threshold and then show their master tactician skills by using a very different approach from their opponents, even within the same faction.
Strategies will always change and unit formations will no doubt vary when playing the game, as companies will no doubt have their strengths and weaknesses, and the true test will be finding a balance that allows you to tackle a diverse range of compositions once on the battlefield.
Units seem pretty balanced generally, striking a balance between Army Point cost and utility in battle, and while a more costly unit will indeed prove to dominate in 1v1 encounters with lesser ones, several weaker units converging on a larger enemy will quickly whittle it down.
The game so far seems to serve many appetites, encouraging diversity and allowing army compositions that suit every taste, and accommodating both elite squads of only a couple of more advanced minions as well as lowly zerg fests, as long as the proper decisions are made.
The store allows players to inspect units before recruiting them, to see their future upgrades and costs in order to plan ahead for their ultimate company. The main interface looks pretty much like a browser-based game, with the missions and the store and menus, but once a game starts, things change.
Battles are rendered in quality 3D, not especially breath-taking but also not just functional. The game has a generally pleasing aesthetic direction, with good hand-drawn art and detailed environments.
Character models are well-made, animations are fluid and there are plenty of beautiful effects to complement the strategic gameplay, for everything from blood spatters to unholy incantations.
The same goes for sounds, everything you do in game has a corresponding sound effect that you won't even hear when you're busily assessing the current tactical situation, but that contributes to the overall atmosphere in a rather pleasant manner.
The interface doesn't get in the way and there are tooltips for everything, so newer players can quickly adjust to the game and even start calculating their odds and damage inflicted on their own, as the rules are pretty easy to pick up.
A greater variety of maps would have been a really nice feature, as currently the game seems a tad repetitive at times, when engaging on the same maps over and over again.
The main worry with free-to-play titles is that they are also usually pay-to-win, which is completely not the case with Dogs of War Online. In the fashion of respectable free-to-play online games, the game store offers nothing that you can't already get in game, the only difference between a free player and a paying one is the amount of time certain items require.
The purchasable items include extra company slots, extra units slots within a company, the ability to customize the color of a certain unit or to gain a temporary in-game money boost, all of which can also be purchased by using the game's currency.
Conclusion
Dogs of War Online plays like a virtual tabletop miniatures game worthy to take on all competition. It looks good and plays even better, and will surely be a contender in the online multiplayer arena, especially since it has no strong competition in the turn-based tactics genre.
Battles are fun and engaging, the relatively small companies offer a lot of diversity and replayability, as well as keeping things fresh and avoiding stale and tedious confrontations, as they tend to end quite fast even if the tension sometimes creates some time dilation.
The rules themselves seem pretty well balanced, they are simple enough not to require playing with a manual in hand, but they offer enough depth to deliver an enthralling strategic experience.
Probably the best thing about Dogs of War Online is that it is just getting started, as each of the game's three main factions currently has only one sub-faction available at start, from the many existing in the game universe, so the tactical experience can only improve from now on.
