Comes with a nice set of levels to play. Also has map editor and a tool to convert your BattleIsle levels. Doesn't do the "one person attacks while the other person moves" thing, but the lack doesn't seem to particularly change the balance of the converted BI levels.
Unlike BattleIsle, it runs on MoonShadow's Linux box without needing an emulator. MoonShadow is currently addicted. ChrisHowlett has had a fiddle with the Windows version - but can't seem to get anything other than the first mission in the tutorial. He completes that, but then gets the main menu again. Reselecting the tut just gives mission one again.
MoonShadow just plays the "vs computer" skirmish maps ^^; He's got no idea if the tutorial actually works - it wasn't there at all in the last version he had (0.4.2; current version is 0.4.7) so he wouldn't be too surprised if it's not been fleshed out yet :/ which he guesses is not much help to people who haven't played BattleIsle to death so don't already know how the game works..
...and it's crashed to DOS. Not really my sort of game anyway --CH
..oh, well. SwitchToLinux :) FWIW, MoonShadow has all the BattleIsle CDs if any Cantabrigians do want to borrow them - that runs just fine on a WindowsBox, and it's the same game :)
Playing the game: For each of your units, you can make it move to a space, then select a target to fire on if any are in range. Units with a range greater than 2 cannot fire if they have moved that turn, and cannot target directly adjacent spaces (so cannot retaliate). If the unit being fired on is in a space adjacent to the attacking unit, it will shoot back. Each type of unit can only move over certain types of terrain, and some terrain is harder to cross than some. Right-clicking on a unit and clicking on "info" will display defence strength, base movement rate, firepower against ships, land and air units and the kinds of terrain that unit may move over. Hovercraft, personnel carriers and some of the ships can carry other units and energy crystals; the right-click context menu for these units will have a "contents" option. Units may be moved into carrier units, and also into your buildings. Infantry may be moved into opponents' buildings to capture them.
Double-clicking on a carrier unit, or double-clicking on a building entrance, or selecting "contents" from the contents menu will get you at the building contents screen, in which you can double-click on contained units to move them out of the container, repair them in some kinds of building (which uses energy crystals) and in some kinds of building you can double-click on an empty space to build new units (which uses *lots* of energy crystals). Units that have been given orders or cannot take orders that turn get a red dot. Once you're done giving orders, you select the "end turn" option from the context menu of a blank space on the map and watch the results of any attacks followed by the computer's turn. Rinse, lather, repeat; destroying all enemy units or capturing the enemy HQ usually wins the level. The computer opponent has a nasty habit of keeping some units in its HQ so you have to capture it to win.
Damaged units have decreased firepower. Units that hit units in combat get experience and move up ranks. Higher ranks give bonuses to hit and increased firepower. Units that have large numbers of enemy units around them have reduced movement range, find it harder to evade fire and have reduced toughness.
Basic strategy: Try to attack from non-level terrain (woods, hills, mountains) onto level terrain (roads, plains) - you get a bonus to hit, the enemy gets a penalty to retaliate. Attacks happen in the order you place the orders in. Order your ranged attacks first so that when enemy units retaliate, some have already been destroyed. Try to surround enemy units when you can do so without endangering your own. Keep your ranged units behind lines of tanks so they don't get damaged. Keep your artillery well back. They are very weak. Stay out of range of the enemy's artilleries, and dash in and destroy them as soon as you're given an opportunity; if you lose a unit or two doing so but guarantee destruction, you're ahead.
The computer opponent places too much value on infantry. If you have some spare, you can use it to draw artillery fire while other units get to the artillery and destroy it. At the same time, the computer is much less effective at using its transport vehicles than in BattleIsle, so you can usually beat it even to its own shops because it does not bother to transport its infantry over long distances. Also, the computer does not deal well with narrow passes - if you block off a narrow pass with a heavy tank or two, a scout behind them and an artillery within range, the computer will keep sending units at the blockade one by one until you destroy them all. This badly spoils a couple of the levels - MoonShadow would like to try these against a human opponent sometime.
To be fair, the computer opponent in BattleIsle was quite pants in various ways as well; the designers worked around this by increasing the imbalance in numbers of units given to you and the computer to quite silly amounts in the later single-player levels to keep them challenging.
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