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Soldiers Inc.

Soldiers Inc. is a browser-based MMORTS set in Zandia, a state ridden with war. Players take on role of Commander, hired by a black ops organization called “The Syndicate,” with instruction coming from a character codenamed Mr. Black. Tasked with securing natural resources, players fight for monopoly on Zandia’s lands by constructing and maintaining a base, building their army, and attacking their enemies.

Publisher: Plarium
Playerbase: Medium
Type: Browser Strategy
Release Date: August 1, 2013
Pros: +Large playerbase. +Great soundtrack. +Modern war theme.
Cons: -Cash shop sells power. -Retro graphics have limited appeal.

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Overview

Soldiers Inc. Overview

Soldiers Inc. is a 2D strategy MMO available on internet browser and Facebook, developed by Plarium. Build your own base in the desolate, resource-rich Zandia. Upgrade structures, expand your borders, recruit military units, join Combines, and steal resources from your enemies. Bolster your ranks with a variety of unique units specializing in defense and offense, upgrading them with the game’s skill tree system. Complete objectives to grow your small base to a force of reckoning, making your mark in history as you lead your military to total land domination.

Soldiers Inc. Key Features:

  • Unique PvP – send recon units into enemies bases to gather information before raiding them for resources.
  • High Quality Voice Acting – narrator named Mr. Black.
  • Isometric Graphics – retro, top-down isometric graphics in an apocalyptic scenario.
  • Three Types of Units offensive, defensive, and recon.
  • Combines – form alliances with other players to plan massive attacks against your enemies.

Soldiers Inc. Screenshots

Soldiers Inc. Featured Video

Soldiers Inc. - Official Trailer

Full Review

Soldiers Inc. Review

By Margo Sikes

Soldiers Inc. is a free-to-play 2D browser-based strategy MMO developed and published by Plarium, an Israeli gaming company responsible for other games in the same genre including Sparta: War of Empires and Total Domination. Players take the role of Commander in the resource-rich and war-ridden Republic of Zandia, a fictional African country set in roughly 2019. Hired by the elusive “Syndicate,” Commanders are tasked with taking control of the region to gain access to its resources. Typical to its genre, players begin with a barren base and given objectives to complete that teach the player the user interface and the general game flow—building structures, collecting resources, and sending military units off to battle.

Starting Out

Players in Soldiers Inc. begin with a basic base, fitted only with necessary structures to begin. Mr. Black, the game’s resident tutorial character, instructs players on the importance of gathering resources and how to build structures. He offers Diamonds, the game’s premium currency, as reward for completing objectives. Mr. Black is fully voice acted with great sound quality and competent voice acting, adding a higher level of immersion than is typical for the genre. He moves players through the basic setup of the game, explaining Contracts, Combines, combat, resources, and other strategy game mechanics. Eventually, he starts tapering off, allowing players to make their own gameplay choices. As is common with browser strategy games, a new player shield is given for three days or until the player hits level 30.

Building and Maintaining Your Base

Players will spend most of their game time inside their own base, which is central for most of the game’s features. Commanders begin with building structures to create resources and then must maintain those resources to build more structures and units to help attack their foes. Each building has a unique function, categorized by tabs in the build menu. Buildings fall under Resource, Command, Military, Defense, Improvements, and Expansion; many of which must be built to unlock features found in the game. To access the game’s unit improvement skill tree, for example, players must build a Training Center to make use of the Drill Instructors that act as talent points. A common feature of MMORTS games are timers. Soldiers Inc. is no exception. The Training Center takes time for it to train player units, starting at 5 minutes and increasing exponentially. Building construction is also timed, and players begin with only one construction slot that is upgradeable with premium currency.

Resources: Fuel, Munitions, and Rations

Resources and resource management will be a familiar concept to any gamer with RTS experience, acting as an integral part of any base-building game. Resources are used to improve bases and create new units to get players ahead in the game, but must be balanced appropriately to lower the risk of having funds stolen from other players and to support future upgrades. Soldiers Inc. has three primary resources that must be used to support most of the game’s actions: Fuel, Munitions, and Rations. These can be acquired passively through the player’s base from Oil Derricks, Munitions Factories, Landing Zones, and can also be stolen from other players. These are used as a basic expense to build most units and structures and are constantly regenerating from the player’s resource buildings.

The game also has secondary resources used to craft special units, which include Thulium, Influence Points, and Drill Instructors. Thulium is acquired via the Black Market and around the world map and is used to hire a special type of unit, the Syndicate Tactical Assault Group. Influence points are gained from attacking or defending NPC locations during world events and are used to buy Contracts that train special units. Finally, Drill Instructors are gained from leveling up and from certain combat missions and are used to distribute unit talent points.

Contracts and Training

Players can customize their gameplay experience with the two skill trees the game offers, one being its Contracts system and the other being its Training Center. Contracts are unlocked after building the Contracting Office, which offers contract negotiation for new services, units, and buildings. Before negotiating a contract, players must gain the proper Referral required, which are acquired once daily. Players can trade their Referrals in the Black Market or purchase ones with premium currency, as the referrals acquired daily are completely random. Players can also customize their army with the Training Center, which uses Drill Instructors to train units in combat to make them more useful. Players can focus on specific unit production time, speed, and damage to power up their favorite units. Players are allowed one free training reassignment. Afterwards, premium currency must be used.

Building Your Army

Soldiers Inc. players can recruit three types of units to build their armies: offensive, defensive, and recon. Offensive units specialize in attacking other players’ bases, boasting very high offensive ability and very low defensive skill. Defensive units are the opposite. They are used to defend points, boasting high defense and having very low capability to attack. Recon units are typically not used in combat and are primarily used to gather information on neighboring bases. They can inform players on the amount and type of units guarding a base, which is helpful in setting up an attack plan. Unit choice is an important strategic element as each unit has strengths and weaknesses against other unit types. Tanks, for example, are expensive, high-stat Armor types. Tanks are strong against other Armors and Combat Aviation types but are weak against Light and Heavy Infantries.

Join a Combine!

Combines allow players to join forces under an organized command structure with a single name, symbol, and hierarchy. They offer a host of group-oriented benefits, from unique contracts and the ability to send reinforcements to allies to creating and nurturing partnerships with other Combines. Players can deploy mass organized attacks to capture strategic points, which increase their standing as a team in the Combine Rankings.

PvP on the Mind

On top of joining a Combine and vying for the top spot in the region by capturing Mining Complexes, players are also encouraged to PvP against their neighbors. Players have three choices in offensive mobility against enemy players: Raid, Occupy, and Recon. Raiding is a quick, easy way to earn extra resources in the game; players attack an enemy base and have victory and loot determined by the amount of units sent and their stats. Occupation is a longer term way to earn resources, which offers both a chunk of resources that the occupied base produces as well as moving up in the Occupation Rankings. Occupying bases has the risk of losing more units in the long term, as players can retaliate either themselves or get a friend to help liberate their base. Recon, on the other hand, is done by Recon units only and shows a player the enemy’s reinforcements based on the player’s recon success. It is therefore smart to recon a base before raiding or occupying to make sure that the player’s army is properly stacked to force a victory.

Cash Shop

Diamonds are a Commander’s best friend. The game’s premium currency is strong enough that players who are willing to spend real world money will be greatly rewarded for their payment. While they are rewarded from objectives and achievements, they are in fairly low supply to non-paying players, and as such are quite a commodity. Players are given various advantages in the game through the use of Diamonds, such as activating Executive Status, which awards players multiple boosts, special units, and special missions. Aside from Executive Status, Diamonds can be used to instantly complete timers and purchase special units and Premium content. Diamonds can also be used to heal fallen units and revive dead ones immediately after battle. Soldiers Inc. is certainly a pay-to-win game, but its idea of selling power is not a new one to MMORTS games. Its monetization is a genre standard, found similarly in games like Empire: Four Kingdoms, Stormfall: Age of War, and WarTune. With that in mind, monetization can be considered a necessary evil.

Final Verdict – Good

Soldiers Inc. is another solid game from Plarium, coming from a line of popular, addicting MMORTS games that use the same formula (Stormfall: Age of War, Total Domination, Sparta: War of Empires, etc.). Its music and voice acting quality is of a great standard, making the game more engaging than some of its competitors. Additionally, its user interface is noticeably less cluttered than what one would come to expect. Its graphics don’t stand out for uniqueness but do the job well: dull, gray and gritty, fitting its modern war theme. Its pay-to-win elements and its overreliance on Plarium’s tried-and-true formula may turn players off as it doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the playing field. Overall, it is a decent, high quality addition to the genre.

Screenshots

Soldiers Inc. Screenshots

Links

Soldiers Inc. Links

Soldiers Inc. (Official Site)
Soldiers Inc. Facebook
Soldiers Inc. Wiki [Database/Guides]

System Requirements

Soldiers Inc. Requirements

Operating System: XP / Vista / 7 / 8
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Equivalent
Video Card: Any Graphics Card (Integrated works well too)
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Disk Space: 100 MB (Cache)

Soldiers Inc is a browser based MMO and will run smoothly on practically any PC. The game was tested and works well on Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox and Chrome. Any modern web-browser should run the game smoothly. Soldiers Inc is also available on Facebook.

Additional Info

Soldiers Inc. Additional Info

Developer: Plarium Games
Publisher: Plarium Games

Platforms: Web (browser) and Facebook
Release Date: August 1, 2013

Soldiers Inc. was developed and published by Plarium, an Israeli gaming company responsible for many other games in the genre, including Total Domination, Sparta: War of Empires, and Stormfall: Age of War. Plarium owns and operates the game worldwide and, despite being headquartered in Israel, has development offices in Ukraine. The game released worldwide on August 1, 2013 and is also available on Facebook. It is one of the most popular strategy MMOs is available in multiple languages.