When dealing with one thousand spears, Diplomacy is Not an Option, something that will be a common sight in this, almost tower defence-style Real-Time Strategy, with plenty of swords, bows, trebuchets and even large beasts thrown in as well. The goal will be to create the most well-guarded fortifications possible around a crowd of simple peasants that demand food and space like it’s their darn birthright, and while wave after wave of angry folk try to demolish and slay everything on their path. There’s no way to negotiate and no room for mercy, so be prepared for some intense battles where the clock (and the quickly diminishing food) seems to be the biggest enemy. Word of caution: Door 407’s creation is tons of fun, but unbelievably brutal.
The level begins, and you are in control of a stronghold that acts as the base, a tiny army that is mostly there to scout the area (initially), and a bunch of villagers that will have to collect resources like food, wood, stone and iron, which in turn will be used to construct buildings, train an army and research technologies. Proudly embracing classic genre sensibilities, this is RTS gameplay 101, with nothing that will surprise genre veterans. The twist here is that each mission revolves heavily around defending the small medieval town of your creation by large groups of attackers that come in a series of waves. The first handful of missions will teach how to build, how to repel the invaders, and generally show players the ropes and lull them into a sense of security. After a while this will show its true colours.
During the campaign one will get to complete all sorts of objectives. No matter the task at hand, however, it all boils down to this: after several days numerous enemies will come and try to do their thing, after a few more days another bigger army will arrive, and then another one, and then one, two, or even three more from three different directions, with the first wave looking like a small parade, and the final ones resembling rivers of flesh and metal. You are given about five or six minutes to prepare plus a general direction from where the bad guys will come, but you need to be quick on your hands and extremely mindful of your economy if you want to survive. In any case, be prepared to burry lots of dead soldiers.
There’s an undeniable thrill in rushing to create an army and a series of walls that can successfully withstand a force hundreds or even thousands of units strong. This must be earned, though. Even at the lowest difficulty setting available Diplomacy is Not an Option severely punishes complacency. The rules are simple and the buttons easy to learn, but players need to use all the tools at their disposal, and try to play their cards as close to perfection as possible and with minimal losses. Every second counts, and every bad decision raises the possibility of not being adequately prepared for what’s coming. The good news is that this is one of those strategy titles where strategy actually matters.
Creating five layers of walls and placing 500 archers on them won’t cut it here. Despite a few similarities, this doesn’t play like a tower defense title. Instead, you are meant to use all sorts of tactics to destroy the incoming wave as soon as possible. Yes, it’s important to create durable and well protected defenses, but it’s even more important to be a good tactician and constantly try to control the wave of attackers instead of just blindly shooting at it. Some good techniques? Flank enemies with melee soldiers to make the wave narrower, and then use the catapults to blast the artificially created choke point, while the rapidly galloping cavalry is out in the field destroying those darn war machines that have too long a reach.
Diplomacy is Not an Option is a fiercely micro-management-heavy experience. It doesn’t hit you in the head with that fact, but after failing one too many times, it’s easy to see that the Pause button is the biggest ally. It’s needed to keep many balls in the air. Create a base that constantly needs to be upgraded; fight off small bands of enemies that periodically come to do plenty of harm; guard the place where the big attack will come in a short while. Oh, and dead people must be buried so that decease won’t spread to the town… or so that one’s friends don’t return from death hungry for some fresh meat. Never forget: while all these happens, the base must constantly get improved and expanded.
Upon starting a map, everything is randomized, so one must quickly “read” the terrain and smartly decide where to place what. It is paramount to plan way ahead, however, and that’s where the problems begin. There are no indicators showing wave pathing, and its easy to lose hours of progress just because it wasn’t possible to predict that a torrent of foes would come from a different road than the one which was expected. Missions also have a tendency to overstay their welcome by an hour or two. They are way, way too time-consuming for no real reason, and are in desperate need for some balancing that could substantially improve the pacing. Most of all, it would make failures a lot less aggravating.
Difficulty spikes are sharp and sudden, and it’s common, and insanely demoralizing to watch the town you’ve spend two hours carefully building for the past two hours crumble and burn just because of one tactical blunder. Small side note: as mentioned before this doesn’t know when to stop, and that feeds into the storytelling aspect as well. The story, which follows an oddball collection of drunken lords, dismal kings, ironic advisors and tribal princesses is presented in cut-scenes where the writing oscillates between sarcastic charm and confusing nonsense, that feature an unbelievable number of moments with awkward silence or long stretches of absolutely nothing.
Yes, Diplomacy is Not an Option has plenty of issues. Having said that, it remains a very entertaining ride. Its unrelenting nature can irritate, yet it’s incredibly satisfying when a plan works as intended, and the high difficulty pushes you to perform at your best – and if you’re feeling extra masochistic there are multiple difficulty settings to try. How you’ll manage to survive in those is another matter. In terms of content there’s a lengthy branching campaign that can take hours upon hours to see everything on offer and try every faction, and once that’s done there are other things to check like challenge missions, an Endless Mode and even a map editor. As the cherry on top, it all looks great with its colourful, low-poly, almost toy-like aesthetic, and distinct sound design that gives it plenty of character.
