This is the first attempt at a Warzone: 2100 report. Hopefully I can help you guys understand it, and still have a good report. The game I played was pretty weak, but I hope you are entertained nonetheless. :-)

The economy is similar to TA, in that your resource gatherers are stationary buildings. You have to build oil derricks on "oil resources", and then have enough power generators (1 per 4 derricks) to "burn" the oil for your actual money.

The thing I enjoy about this game is the sheer size of the tech-tree. Even on the demo, which contains only about 1/4 of the tech tree, the fastest you can possibly get everything researched, doing NOTHING ELSE, takes a good hour and a half. That means you have to specialize. A few of my favorites:

"Goliath"
Body: Python (the largest, most powerful body available in the demo)
Propulsion: Treads (slow, expensive, but the best armor)
Weapon: Large Cannon (120mm shells)

"Earthshaker"
Body: Python
Propulsion: Treads
Weapon: Mortar (the longest ranged weapon in the demo, good for taking out static defenses)

"Thug"
Body: Python
Propulsion: Treads
Weapon: Heavy Machinegun (good for taking out cyborgs)

"Warlord" - Goliath with Hover propulsion (Hover propulsion is faster than any other method of propulsion, weaker than half-treads, cheaper than full-treads, and the only way a land vehicle can go on/over water)

"Tsunami" - Earthshaker with Hover propulsion

I tried to take screenshots of these units on the design screen, but the screenshot key didn't seem to work. And I did check the readme, thank you.

Now, unfortunately, too many people who play the demo have this almost sexual infatuation with "lancers". I'll admit, they are pretty bad-ass, considering how fast you can get them, but I refuse to believe they are unbeatable. Basically they shoot a pair of rockets, that do pretty good damage, but they fire slower than a Battlecruiser, with 9 acid spores, ensnare, and the game speed set on "slowest".

Personally my favorite units are the one with the 120mm cannons. You know, the ones that would blow a hole through a concrete wall 5 meters thick and send shards of concrete the size of your torso screaming away from the site of impact at approximately five hundred times the speed of sound.

So, anyway, probably the best place to find a game of Warzone in on Mplayer.com. So I went into the Demo Lobby (I hope to get the full game this Christmas), trying to get an FFA started. Unfortunately the total number of players of the WZ demo number about 15 during the busy hours, and this was fairly late at night. But, I did manage to get a 1v1 going. Too bad the guy was a total putz.

There are only two maps in the demo, a map called "Rush" (which actually does not, to me, seem terribly condusive to rushes), and a map called "Mountain". We played on the latter, me in the northeast, my opponent in the southeast. Since most of you probably have never heard of Warzone 2100, much less played it, Mountain is a semi-symmetrical map covered in snow. Each base has two choke points, and 4 oil resources. A good start. Anyway, my opponent insisted that we start with already set up bases, so my build order is all fucked up. Normally I secure 4 oil resources, build two generators, build a Command Center (neccesary to build or design any units), three research facilities, and then a factory. But when you start with bases, not only are things like that built already, but they are built in the worst possible places. At least I can TRY to pick up my build order. First thing I do is max out on research facilities, to let me tech faster. The most the demo allows you is three. Then I start designing my basic troops.

Let's see... what do I have available... hmm... wheels, viper body, and machinegun. First tank. I call it "Flash". I send Flash out a little ways, to scout for me. It discovers a few more oil resources, so I send out a lone truck (your construction unit) to build some more derricks, while I have a small fleet of trucks (these have been manufactured while I scouted) sitting back in my base, building a couple extra power generators so I can get the maximum effectiveness as soon as the derricks come on line. Flash passes by the scavenger hill, and come under fire... oh yeah, I forgot to mention, you can add "scavenger" units to your game. Basically they are hostile to everybody, but fairly weak, and they don't expand or anything. They just sit on the map to get in the way. I ignore the scavenger hill for now, since they aren't sending any troops at me. (Strangely enough, I've never seen scavengers do anything but try to hold the center mountain on Mountain. On Rush they actually produce troops and attack every once in a while.) I continue on, trying to find more oil. By this time, I have my scout tank ready, equipped with wheels, viper body, and a radar turret. I call it, "Oracle". I produce an Oracle, and use it to replace my Flash scout, since Oracle can see much farther. Flash returns to my base in case of attack, joining his fellow Flashes, which now number about 8. Oracle scouts the upper left, the lower left, finds all the oil resources on the map, and then heads to the lower right. Found him. He's producing cyborgs. Great. Nobody uses cyborgs. Now I have to modify my tech to fit cyborgs. Which means heavy machinegun army. My normal army is tailored to fit tanks. Cannons, lancers, and mortars, in about a 1:1:2 ratio.

Anyway, I tech up, trying to upgrade my machinegun tanks the most. Let's see, Fuel Injection Engine Mk3 (speed upgrades), Composite Materials (armor upgrades), ADPSD Bullets (Machinegun upgrade, I don't remember if I got the spelling right), Chaingun upgrade (makes machineguns fire faster). Good, good. Meanwhile, I haven't seen anything out of my friend. I have tabs on his choke points, and not once have I seen anything leave his base. I think that I could probably contain him if I moved my army to near his base, so I pack up my army, by this time the biggest bad-ass heavy machinegun totin, tread wearing, python body tanks you can see in the demo. On my way down, I send just ONE of these badasses towards the scavenger base. It takes a few minutes, but he emerges with about half his health left, and the scavenger base just a memory. I told you scavengers were weak. Anyway, because I have him contained, I use a truck to go build a derrick on every oil resource on the map. This is enough to last me until the next Ice Age. I could probably have killed him right then and there, but I decided to delay it a little bit and build some 120mm hardpoints at his two chokes. These are the cannons I mentioned earlier. Could vaporize a mack truck in one shot. And these are sitting on top of 25 feet tall, 10 feet thick concrete walls. Not something you want to attack with a butter knife, much less a small tank. Which is what he finally tried to break out with. I laughed. By this time, I had about 24 "Thugs", the same bad-ass that flattened the scavenger base all by himself. Also, at about this time, he decides to try to break out, doing a little better because this time he's using... (gasp!) LANCERS!!! Damn, they outrange my cannon walls. Oh well, I've got 18 oil resources to his 4, so even if I lose my army attacking him, I don't think I'm gonna die very quick, since he has yet to get any of my howitzer walls into yellow hp.

So I take half my Thug army to one choke, and the other half to the other, and start to pincer his base. Strangely enough, not only are all his cyborgs gone, but so his is cyborg factory! He must have decided he wasn't gonna use cyborgs, and had recycled them all. Whatever. The first thing to die is a small group of hovercraft, with the Python body and lancer missiles. Score a couple kills for group #1. Group #2 runs into a similar group, attacking my other set of howitzer walls. They die miserably, because like I said before, they fire slower than molasses.

This is where Warzone beats Starcraft hands down. Lag issues. Even if somebody is lagging like a snail carrying a piano, the game doesn't run any slower. However, troops will still pop out of factories you killed about 20 seconds ago. This guy has the same infatuation with lancers that everybody else seems to have. However, he uses hover propulsion instead of treaded propulsion. Lower hp, lower cost, but higher speed and can go on water. Not that that's an issue. The only water zone is about 5 miles from either of our bases.

As I begin the process of flattening his base, he asks the same question all Starcraft newbies do. "show some mercy" I remain silent. "let me live dammit" I still remain silent. By now he's down to his final oil derrick. Nothing else remains of his once proud (ha!) base. He says "fuck you" as his final oil derrick erupts into flame. I lost two tanks during this whole fracas. Shows how good lancers are. "Armorhead has left the game". I laugh and go back to the Warzone lobby.