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Rusted Warfare [Steam], a 2D RTS from Corroding Games is now on Linux. It reminds me a little of Total Annihilation & Red Alert and it was originally an Android game that's made it to PC.

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In my youth I discovered Total Annihilation, a strategy game from Cavedog and it quite literally changed my life. I put entire days and nights into it and it was pure joy. Sending hundreds of units at my enemy and later playing it online when we discovered the wonders of the internet. Rusted Warfare reminds me of it a lot, as it has a lot of the same basic ideas, but with a much more colourful look and a few more up to date features.

I actually personally found it on Android quite some time ago and I was impressed at how there was a proper RTS on Android. It has tactical zoom, lots of units, resource collection, different tech levels and so on. Now I'm even happier as it has released on Steam with day-1 Linux support. Rusted Warfare is a proper, traditional real time strategy game. I had no idea it was coming to PC, let alone Linux too!

Features
  • Over 40 unique units with many upgrades
  • Optimised multi-core engine easily handles battles of 1000's of units.
  • Experimental units for the big late-game battles
  • Zoom out to view and issue commands across the whole battlefield
  • Create your own battles in the sandbox editor then play them in multiplayer

It has single-player missions, skirmishes against the AI, an endless build and survive mode and proper online multiplayer too. You can host your own game through Steam, or play it on dedicated servers. The multiplayer is cross-platform between Windows, Linux and Android!

image

I managed to give it a go earlier and I'm pleased to say I haven't encountered a single issue. If you see less activity on the website from me, you can probably start blaming this game. The AI is reasonably competent too, I battled against the Medium AI (there's three difficulty levels higher) and was quite surprised to see it see off my attacks for a while, that was until I upgraded to get the huge experimental units that leave a path of destruction behind them.

The AI will actually expand around resource nodes, build up defences, repair their base when you attack and generally act as you would expect. I've been quite impressed with it for sure! This could be a little hit, with proper traditional strategy games not really made much any more, especially not with Linux support.

It's a very surprising little strategy game and I highly recommend checking it out if you're in need of a proper one. This could happily be a regular game we play! Don't knock it due to the graphics, it will surprise you. It's not an Early Access game either, this is a complete and fully functional strategy game.

You can find Rusted Warfare on Steam for £3.99, with 10% off until 21st July.

Small update: After posting this to reddit, the developer commented and it turns out it's built on Linux!
QuoteVery cool to see my game here, I'm the developer of the game so let me know if you have any questions. The game was built entirely in Linux so you will likely find it runs slightly better on Linux than it does windows.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Steam, Strategy
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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16 comments
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Kohrias Jul 18, 2017
Cool. Looks a bit simplistic but I will happily try it out. The more RTS on Gnu/Linux the better.
Tiedemann Jul 18, 2017
I must try this. I can't stand the LoL type RTS stuff :P

The landing pad thingy reminds me of Dune and some units looks like upgraded Red Alert/C&C.
razing32 Jul 18, 2017
Does the skirmish mode allow you to team up with AIs ?

I always like big fights but unless the AI plays on my team as well , I don;t get to do that.
Liam Dawe Jul 18, 2017
Quoting: razing32Does the skirmish mode allow you to team up with AIs ?

I always like big fights but unless the AI plays on my team as well , I don;t get to do that.
Yep, teams are possible with AI :)
nate Jul 19, 2017
Awesome, I will definitely be following this project.
Liam Dawe Jul 19, 2017
Small update: After posting this to reddit, the developer commented and it turns out it's built on Linux!
QuoteVery cool to see my game here, I'm the developer of the game so let me know if you have any questions. The game was built entirely in Linux so you will likely find it runs slightly better on Linux than it does windows.
razing32 Jul 19, 2017
Quoting: liamdaweSmall update: After posting this to reddit, the developer commented and it turns out it's built on Linux!
QuoteVery cool to see my game here, I'm the developer of the game so let me know if you have any questions. The game was built entirely in Linux so you will likely find it runs slightly better on Linux than it does windows.

That makes me happy somehow :)
Tiedemann Jul 20, 2017
I really like the AI for such a small game.

AI attacks from different angles and are very persistent, they don't give up unless they can't build anything.

The bases can have a very good defense, like the laser towers that shoots down projectiles, combined with auto repair towers and units. A focused attack is hard to defend against, but it's not like your whole base is going down just because of a few powerful units.

I remember some friends and I had a 12 hour tesla coil tower war in Red Alert once and you can easily build like a hero and get a pretty big base here too. There's no power limit and that's a good thing. You do need the resource flow though and you still need some units so it's not an easy strategy :P

AI is a pretty good ally. They build defenses in your base and around, they expand pretty well and they also send units around where ever they're needed. The only "issue" is that things can feel more hectic than it is with a bunch of AIs around as there's action "everywhere", even though it's just a few units.

There's no unit limit :D


I think this game has the potential to have even longer/bigger fights, but that means you need bigger maps. Even though you can set up new bases, you can't really hide well long enough for it to mean much unless you play against a totally brain dead guy. It has something to do with how fast units moves too.
Liam Dawe Jul 20, 2017
The game recently got patched after I put out the article, changes:
Quote-Add idle builder & extractor hotkey.
-Quick rallypoint option (change rally with just move orders), can be turned off in the settings.
-German and Italian translations.
-Disconnected shown on player's units if they aren't in the game.
-Fixes to hotkey saving.
-Builders/spiders now selected automatically when starting a game
-New options: '-width', '-height', '-fullscreen', '-nomusic' added for troubleshooting
Tiedemann Jul 21, 2017
Damn! There's actually a unit cap, I just hit it in endless mode.

I have saved in case someone knows how to disable it :P
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