14 DAY TRIAL // My most recent long-term obsession when it comes to competitive multiplayer action is Wargame Red Dragon, the new military-themed real-time strategy title from developer Eugen Systems and publisher Focus Home Interactive, which I have been playing every weekend since it was launched earlier in the year.
The core of the experience involves choosing a nation and a specialization, building a deck out of the available units, and then choosing a battleground before facing against an enemy player or a team.
I tend to play mostly 1 versus 1 matches and I have two or three that I actually like playing, and after suffering some losses, I was unable to properly explain how it happened, so I started to read the official forums before jumping into battle, mainly in order to keep up with the changes introduced by the development team.
That’s when I entered the fascinating and at times weird universe of meta-game analysis, where players debate what are the best ways to build decks, which units are dominating the battlefield, and how to counter the most common enemy strategies.
There are players who clearly have more time, and I do too, who spend time not only playing Wargame Red Dragon but also carefully analyzing their replays and those created by other top-level gamers in order to glean information about the overall balance.
I tried to keep up with some of their discussions and apply what I learned in my own matches, but I had the feeling that rather than gaining a deeper understanding of the strategy title, I was losing some of its unique flavor.
The current meta-game favors fast choppers and special forces, backed up by solid artillery fire and careful use of planes and, sometimes, naval assets.
Tanks and Infantry fighting vehicles are rarely efficient, and normal infantry tends to get overrun a little too fast.
I understand this info and I know how I should tweak my decks in Wargame Red Dragon in order to become more competitive, but I rarely implement all the changes I should.
I like winning, but I also like to play in a balanced way, using a wide variety of the included units and trying out different tactics depending on the match and the setup my opponent uses.
Wargame Red Dragon is not a perfectly balanced game, but every time I read more about the meta-game I feel like I get a little bit further from the magic of the title.