About Total Annihilation: Kingdoms
Start with the basics below, then read about the world of Darien and its four houses, the expansion that added a fifth, the game's history and the people who made it.
The Basics
Total Annihilation: Kingdoms is a real-time strategy game. Cavedog Entertainment made it, and GT Interactive published it in June 1999. It is set in Darien, a world of swords, siege engines and magic, where the four children of the emperor Garacaius fight over his kingdom.
Aramon fights with knights, cavalry and siege weapons, Veruna with ships, archers and towers, Taros with dark magic and the undead, and Zhon with beasts. The Iron Plague expansion of 2000 adds a fifth house, Creon, with machines and guns. No house's units are copies of another's, so each house plays differently.
Each player starts with a monarch: Elsin, Kirenna, Lokken, Thirsha or Creon's Sage. The monarch builds the first structures and fights with spells. A game setting decides whether losing your monarch ends the game.
There is only one resource, mana, and every unit and structure costs it. Your builders place Lodestones on mana sites, and each Lodestone raises your income. Spellcasters also carry a personal supply of mana for their spells. The economy page works through the numbers.
The campaign, The Book of Darien, tells one story over 48 missions. You play each house in turn as the war moves between them. The Iron Plague adds 25 more missions and an alternative final mission.
Skirmish battles against the computer and games between players use the multiplayer maps. The largest take up to eight players.
