Fantasy General Dragons instead of tanks

You pick one of four champions, each with its own traits and abilities, then raise an army from almost nothing. Over ten unit classes and four races are open to you: mortals, magic, beasts and mechs fight side by side. The campaign stretches across five continents, each ending with one of the Shadowlord's lieutenants, and you choose which territory to liberate next from two or three options. Those choices matter: different routes bring different heroes to recruit, different artefacts to find and different battles to fight. The army you build carries over from battle to battle, so every veteran you keep alive is an investment.

Units gain experience battle by battle, and a hardened regiment is worth far more than a fresh one. Losing a high-level unit hurts for the rest of the campaign, even when you can afford to buy a replacement, because it takes missions to earn that experience back. So you weigh every advance: push cavalry into the open to grab a distant town, or hold back and keep them safe? Terrain matters a great deal, flanking and surrounding enemies pays off, and wounded units are more likely to retreat when attacked. Careful players who treat each regiment as precious will feel at home here.

Between battles you spend your gold in two directions: research upgrades for your unit classes, or recruit and equip the army in front of you. Balance the two and your forces grow stronger every mission. Hidden items and heroes turn up along the way to boost your troops further. The presentation is pure 90s: charming unit sketches, a choral soundtrack, a point-and-click interface and hex maps that look exactly like what they are. The graphics are old, and the game makes no apology for it. What holds up is the planning, and that is the point.