"It's the economy, stupid!"
War & Beyond:Deadly Strategies is a strange little beast. It's perhaps the most "pure" Real-Time Strategy game ever created. Of course, it achieves this by completely removing tactics from the equation. While I realize this was probably done to make the game easier to program, the result is a surprisingly novel gameplay experience.
Basically, you *can not* micro-manage your armies. You can't tell them where to go or which unit to attack. Instead, units on both sides roam about randomly, completely uncoordinated. (And you thought the units in TA were dumb.)
Fortunately, you can give each class of unit a generalized objective, such as to attack enemy units, attack enemy buildings, rush the enemy base, etc. But generally what you'll end up doing is defending your buildings until you can build up an overwhelming force, then launch your attack.
Sustainability is almost impossible to achieve, but if you keep building economics structures packed together as closely as possible, you'll eventually reach a point where you're literally earning money faster than you can spend it. Then you can build 5 or so offensive structures and start mass-producing whichever unit you feel gives you the most bang for your buck. (For me it was probably the Kuburai. Apparently, cutting tanks in half with a sword is not only extremely badass; it's also quite economical.)
*Ignore* the mission briefings when your C.O. tells you to build some big expensive new unit. Most of the time, these new units are too expensive, fire too slowly, or just can't survive very long. Instead, keep churning out cheap units such as the Podas Defense, Rocketmen, or Kuburai.
There's an intriguing "demand surrender" button. It makes sense that if the player can surrender a losing battle, the AI might be willing to do so as well. But since the endgame is the most fun part of any RTS (arguably the explosive payoff for all that tedious base-building,) I hardly ever used it.
Sometimes you'll start a map with forces stacked overwhelmingly against you. That's where the complete lack of discretionary targeting works to the player's advantage. Oh, sure, their forces may overrun your base *initially.* But instead of grinding your base into the dust , half the time they'll drive off again and go back to defending, so you can safely ignore the early skirmishes. The one exception is airstrikes. Air units move fast enough that even random attacks add up, so build cheap anti-air units if you see planes.
I noticed a few maps start with 0$, the objective being to eliminate all the enemy units. Since the player can't build anything, and the player can't directly control his units, it stands to reason that the game designer would have given the player stronger units than the enemy, right? This was an easy intro mission, after all, probably intended to familiarize the player with that faction's units. On a whim, I clicked "demand surrender." Sure enough, the AI did the math and decided there was no way it could possibly win this one. GG, next map!
Later, some 0$ missions become annoying escort missions. In "samurai," I would instruct the titular target to hide at the base while everyone else would attack. (This is basically the only move you can make with $0.) I had to re-do this level 4 times because of random factors beyond my control, such as which units crossed paths first.
Other than that, it's a great experimental game that explores some new territory in terms of gameplay. Of course, no real army would fight like this. But it's a fun game with lots to discover.
I'm giving this game a 10 even though there's plenty of room for improvement, because I was impressed with the game as a whole. It does something unapologetically new, it does it with some degree of style, and it has that kick-ass intro animation. I can't comment on the exe version, but I get the impression these graphics look worse the closer zoomed in you are, because the inconsistancies in drawing style would become more pronounced.
It's a great game, though, and I recommend it!