When it comes to RTS games, most variations of base-building and unit generation techniques have been thoroughly done to death. The Fertile Crescent 2 builds on the systems established in the first with UI tweaks, a new faction and an improved campaign.
The Fertile Crescent 2 does what any good sequel should, it builds on the strengths of the first while also working to fix the weaknesses. In this case, a lot a familiar features remain: Villagers will automatically generate when your food is in the positive, all units will require a constant stream of food and buildings will either require, or massively benefit from, being placed on fertile ground.
The latter, the soil fertility system, is the main thing that makes the series stand out. It makes base placement more than a defensive decision, but also a scarcity-based one. In Age of Empires, it’s clearest influence, you will naturally want to settle in a place with plentiful trees and stone, and realistically some animals to hunt… here you’ll also need to ensure that there’s moist soil or marshland nearby too. Combine that farms rapidly become your main source of food and that food is being constantly drained by any units you have, and – as is the case historically – farms rapidly become the soft underbelly of your base. Your troops and farmers will grow weak and starve if the food supplies are cut off.
With that in mind, I’m surprised that naval combat never rears its head, especially given the presence of several major waterways in the area that gives The Fertile Crescent 2 its name.
Improvements here, over the first, include a tighter UI, tucking research off to the side of the screen, as well as an extra faction that you can ascend into (The Hitties). For those unfamiliar with the first, unlike its peers, here you transition into a bronze age faction once you reach a certain point in a match. These each have their own play-styles, and massively change the dynamic of the match-in-progress, shifting from you from hut dwellers who throw stones into spear wielding hoplites and their contemporaries.
When I tell people about The Fertile Crescent 2 I probably won’t talk about any of this though, I’ll instead talk about how it carefully balances its introduction of mechanics throughout its campaign.
The campaign follows a small group of travellers who make their way from a city burned by raiding sea people – a parallel narrative that appears in multiple sources throughout the end of the Bronze Age – as they travel between settlements, helping out other survivors and trying to turn back this new enemy. Progression is carefully managed, and the baseless hero missions fit the story both thematically and mechanically – its a delight.
The Fertile Crescent 2 is available for PC now.
